Rushed storyline and downright cheesy editing cancel out breathtaking visuals.

Rating: 5/10 (7 April 2018)

I'm not gonna lie, Life of Pi is absolute eye candy. The visuals are striking and impressive, especially considering more than half of the movie takes place in the middle of the ocean. However, maybe Life of Pi was best left as a novel; the translation from paper to the big screen just doesn't stack up. The undeniable brilliance of Martel's novel is muted by rushed filmmakers trying to squeeze 227 days out at sea into a 2-hour time limit. In addition, some of the transitions between scenes were corny in all the wrong ways. Long story short, the people making this film really love to fade characters on and off the screen. So, despite seamless computer graphics and gorgeous cinematography, it's not a satisfying product overall.
I really wanted to like this movie, and I was excited to see just how the contents of the book could be projected into a film. But after reading the novel, it falls flat. If you want to enjoy this movie, don't read the novel, or better yet, skip it all together and get ahold of the book instead. The bottom line is: it's not awful, but it fails to do Yann Martel's work justice.