fascinating, but only once

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2005)

I've seen this movie three times, but the first time was best: driving techno soundtrack, entrancing black-and-white images, deep and eccentric story. On the second go it had lost some of the depth, and even the soundtrack seemed a little flat. The third time was, well -- completely different. I watched Pi with a bunch of mathematicians, and they winced at it being full of mathematical nonsense. Some of them complained Aronofsky really should have had a maths student take a look at the plot before release, and I ended up feeling awful for torturing scientists...
So my vote (9 out of 10) is for watching Pi the first time, without knowing too much about mathematics.