Runs longer than it needs to and the spectacle hurts the substance, even if it looks good while doing it

Rating: Null/10 (8 June 2014)

Life of Pi was one of those books that interested me and was constantly on my mind to read but, being quite a lazy man, I never actually got around to it. The story is one told to an American writer by a man called Pi Patel and it involves a ship wreck where the only survivors are himself and some animals which were also being transported on the ship – the most notable of which is a tiger called Richard Parker. Pi relates his struggle to survive, the things that happened to him and ultimately seeks to make the writer believe in god.
Although there is an establishing period early in the film where we discuss god and then also see young Pi and his various religions, the majority of the film occurs once at sea and for most people this is the film they came to see. The posters, the awards and so on all point to this film as a spectacle and to be fair it is. Throughout all the animal sequences it is pretty much never unconvincing; the animals look real and look like they are right there in the same scene. Where bigger sequences occur they are also impressive and technically the whole film looks great. I saw it on 2D on only a television rather than the cinema, but it still worked apart from bits of personal preference – I never like those 1950's style scenes of 'poking audience with stick' – they seem in service of technology than story. Anyway, technically the film works.
The problem is that it works too well. It becomes so much about spectacle that we forget all the work in the early part of the film – all that talk about god and ultimately Pi's statement that he will make the writer believe in god. This comes back at the end in a way that is actually quite satisfying because although not as smart as it thinks it is, it does make you think even if it is pretty bleak. The thing is though that this seems stuck on to a special-effects movie, not that a movie about religion had effects in it; so the irony is that the substance of the film really doesn't work as well as it could have done. The need to make the spectacle also means that the film runs much longer than it needed to do if you really were focused on telling the story.
It is still a well made project though and the work of all involved is really up there. From the cast, Sharma is great in his first film – convincing in the emotional and physical sides. He is well represented by the older version of his character by Khan (although I did keep hearing his In Treatment character in his slow tone). There are other good performances in here but generally the film is all about Sharma and it is impressive that he isn't lost in the special effects or scale of the scenes. Life of Pi is a film that works best as something that it is not – a big, technically impressive, spectacle. The downside of doing that so well is that it is runs longer than the narrative actually needs and makes it feel like the substance is the thing that is a bit out of place in the film.