Decent movie, but very poorly paced.

Rating: 6/10 (5 December 2012)

Perhaps this is not for those who are not big fans of the book, it may be thrilling to see the characters from book come to life in this movie. But for those unfamiliar with the book, the movie was somewhat tedious at times due to poor pacing. The movie starts out really well, all the way through Pi ending up by himself in the boat (with 3 other animals/people). The remainder of the movie just drags on. If you like glitzy CGI work, it may keep you enticed. But otherwise there is no reason for their journey to be that long in the movie, it could have been cut by 25-30% without any meaningful impact on what it was trying to convey. Debut by Suraj Sharma is impressive, especially considering that he has no prior acting background at all. Direction by Ang Lee is masterful but editing could have shortened the movie a bit more. Acting by Irfan Khan is okay, not his best, not even close. Tabu and Gerard Depardieu were wasted. This may be a good movie for those between 11-17 YO who are not sure about religion and its meaning/purpose in life. As a grown-up, I personally found the meaning to be trivial. Only go if you're taking kids with you.