Better At the End Than the Middle

Rating: 7/10 (10 March 2013)

Why you shouldn't see it:
Not to give away too much about this particular movie, but... it drags at parts. While it doesn't necessarily feel any longer than its two hour runtime, it does feel every minute of it. Have you ever watched a movie that takes place entirely on a lifeboat? Well, neither have I, but I've now seen half of a movie that takes place entirely on a lifeboat. I understand there's another movie - titled, coincidentally enough, Lifeboat - that takes place entirely on a lifeboat. Maybe someday I'll watch that Hitchcock piece, but until then I'll have to settle for this particular lifeboat-centric movie. Okay, okay, I have exaggerated slightly how much of this movie takes place on a lifeboat. The parts of the movie that take place on the lifeboat aren't technically entirely on the lifeboat, as there is also the 20-or-so-foot radius of open water around the lifeboat where some action also takes place. So there's that.
This one actually reminds me a fair amount of Cast Away in that the majority of the movie leans heavily on the ability of a single character to engage the audience's interest while he does nothing more than try to survive in extraordinary circumstances. The problem with that comparison is that Suraj Sharma is no Tom Hanks (full disclosure: I an almost creepy respect for Tom Hanks' acting chops, so I may be biased here). While the latter half of Cast Away thrives on Hanks' ability to make otherwise mundane on screen moments incredibly intriguing, Life of Pi just doesn't have as strong a feature actor to revolve its survival story around.
Strangely, some of the more dragging parts of the movie happen before Pi ever fatefully sets foot on a boat. Since the story isn't so much about a lifeboat as it is about a boy and the man that boy becomes, there's the sometimes regrettable necessity of building a backstory about where this person is coming from. It's hard to explain, but there is just something about this backstory that doesn't hold my attention nearly as well as others (for example, Cast Away). As a general rule, I spent a fair amount of the first half of the movie wondering things like, "When are they getting on the boat?", "Why are they not on the boat yet?", "Why do Indians wiggle their heads like that when they talk? Do they think it conveys any message to the listener other than induced confusion?", and, "Wait, does this movie even have a boat in it?"
Why you should see it:
Perhaps above I didn't mention a fairly big (literally and figuratively) additional character in the movie, specifically in the lifeboat: an adult male Bengal tiger. The tiger has a name, but I won't spoil that for you, and I will just refer to it here as "tiger." So anyway, what you thought was going to be a nice, laid back, somewhat boring adventure on a lifeboat turns out to be, in fact, a second-by-second struggle for survival against a freaking Bengal tiger. In case you're not as familiar as I am with Bengal tigers, just know that they average 500 pounds and are considered to be the most aggressive subspecies of an animal that is known to occasionally eat people.
Tiger has a funny name in the movie, and I will give credit to the author and screenwriter for occasionally adding in appropriate moments of humor and everyday humanity into an extraordinary coming of age story. If it hadn't been for the occasional giggle moments in the first half of the movie, I'm not sure I would have made it to the second half. Well, that's an exaggeration, since I'm pretty thoroughly stubborn when it comes to finishing movies, and even more so when it comes to best picture nominees. Still, suffice it to say that there wasn't much to hold my attention for the first hour.
All that being said, there is really one main reason that anyone would want to see Life of Pi, and that reason has everything to do with an appreciation for visual art. Once the film reaches the boat, nearly every frame of the movie one could take, frame, and put it up on his or her wall. The visuals are stimulating not only due to the fact that they include crystal clear detail and vivid, saturated colors, but they also depict images that are not frequently seen. You may not be aware, but an adult male Bengal tiger does not often chill out on a lifeboat playing with flying fish in the middle of the ocean. Even in little moments, Lee finds ways to create visual art out of his material. When the opening credits are rolling over footage of a small Indian zoo, the words on the screen behave like the animals on the screen. Sometimes it's the little things.
In Short:
Life of Pi is visually breathtaking at moments and beautiful for the rest of it. If you have interest in seeing it and aren't opposed to the whole 3D phenomenon, I recommend it as a readily available way to suck you even further into the visuals Lee has created. The story drags at parts for me, and but for the payoff at the end (which I won't spoil for you), I would be happy to write the whole thing off as eye candy and nothing more. But that payoff is there, and as a consequence I've been thinking about it since I saw it almost a week ago. If it weren't for the occasional slowness of the movie itself, I would rate it higher, but for now I'll settle at a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes pretty things and/or exploring the nature of storytelling.