A very good movie

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2013)

I had doubts about this one - many people said that it was stupid and boring, and that it would end up as a turkey, a flop. Sadly I did not watch this one on the big screen, but waited for a blu-ray release so that I may watch it at home, in peace - what I found out really took me by surprise! This story was very deep and heart breaking, a story about survival facing impossible odds, in the middle of the open seas with little food and water, and a lifeboat that's more hostile then the sea below it.
The real movie-turner here was the ending, when Pi's story isn't taken well by the insurance agents ( since it's much too fantastic) and he explains that the whole story is in fact a metaphor - the animals were in fact people, and the tiger was in fact Pi himself. This made the movie even better in my eyes, and answered some questions about the story itself, and the ''real'' story was much too horrific to be displayed outright - a fact even the Japanese insurance agents seem to acknowledge. Pi is shown as a great story teller, and all pieces fall into place, all of this giving us a very solid, heart-warming story, and it's up to the viewer to decide which story is true.
There were some bad points to the movie of course, simple things that could have been done better: The use of CGI was obvious at some parts, but still I can't remember seeing better animated animals in any other movie ( I'd still go for live animals any day, and if a real tiger was used this movie would score a solid 10 for me - I understand that safety is primary when working with big, dangerous animals, but a LOT of movies have used trained bears, lions and tigers before, with great effect)
All in all I'm very pleased, especially after I learned that M. Night Shyamalan was not going to write and direct this project - that would have been... a DISASTER :/