Amazing Parker! Impressive Sharma! Superficial Khan.

Rating: 5/10 (4 December 2012)

According to Lee, Pi has been an exhausting experience, or rather his most exhausting film. And if exhaustion is an exhilarated feel one gets on achieving the desired results, then same goes for the special effects team.
Where 'The Wedding Banquet', 'Eat drink man woman', Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' (though with effects), "Brokeback Mountain', 'Lust, Caution' were character driven then Pi is CGI driven especially led or say eclipsed by Richard Parker (the tiger). So I can imagine those in air-con suites working 24/7 on various animated sequences and effects, and creating him and his movements – ultimately credible! And commendable!
For me the only reason to see it was to affirm what I had imagined while reading the book, and must say the film is pretty close to it! But along the way I couldn't emotionally connect to it like I did with the book! I thought maybe it was because I knew what was coming next but a realization dawned!
Transforming more than (I think) 500 pages into 120 plus minutes can be laborious and so, what has been projected are measured situations in terms of (cost and) duration: resulting in calculated scenes (against the green screen) supplemented by effects comprising Pi and Parker in the second hour. And while executing them an exhausting Lee and equally fatigued CG team overlooked many aspects, which made the boat always look neat and not weather- beaten! So much so that after the zebra, hyena and orangutan are devoured there are no traces of blood! Meaning continuity sank here and there!
As for the 3D touch, many portions could have been stunning, but opportunities were lost! Like Pi on spotting a ship signals by emitting smoke and burning flare, could have been shot from the top with the two effects hitting the audience.
But thank Martel for writing about a teenage Pi sailing with Parker and not a 30 plus man! Otherwise, if Irrfan Khan had been selected to portray that role it would have been unbearable! A mediocre or rather below mediocre (so-called ) actor who is over-rated (like Frieda Pinto) and I can't figure out why? He is, to an extent, just OK for the role in Pi or he did in 'Slumdog' and 'New York'. If someone creates a montage of scenes from his films (and a TV commercial), the result will be simply monotonous!
One effect the CG team created and that turned out to be as lame as this actor (by fluke) are a couple of tears that materialize in his left eye toward the end. They just don't trickle down like they do on young Pi's cheeks! And Sharma does a good job!
Khan's stoicism was evident in 'Billo Barber' where he (Billo) was completely stone faced when Shahrukh emotionally poured his heart out about his friendship with him.
So compared to Priyadarshan, Lee had to take the help of an animator to make him emote with an effect! And a pity the tears don't look as natural as Parker: even expressive when he is unwell, and rests his head on Pi's laps! An expression, which would have been very, very difficult for Khan to give!
The (artificial) tear factor can be included in either trivia or goofs.