An astounding and moving achievement through and through. A graceful camera and perhaps the most artistic and creative utilization of 3-D to date result in an unrivaled visual experience. The ensuing hour after the ship disaster, focused on the title human protagonist and his tiger foe (and later partner), is cinema at its most direct and imaginative: a powerful sense of adventure, hope, menace, and the divine rendered through awe-inspiring images, a mystical and rousing original score, and two hypnotic physical performances, one delivered by a real actor and the other computer generated. The 3-D captures the enormous scope of the sea and the nature of the tiger, both ferocious and majestic. More than just a big-budget visual delight, though, this is also a powerful exploration of the creative instinct and how we (right or wrong, true or false) create or turn to stories, including religion, for comfort or even survival in the face of danger and grief.

A

LIFE OF PI

Wonderful film! I love the acting, cgi, and story. It's extremely well made and visually beautiful. The story draws you in and keeps your attention throughout and the running time absolutely flies by. I don't know if the story answers the question posed in the beginning but it does strengthen your belief in the human ability to survive in the most dire circumstances with what seems like no hope to guide you. I didn't watch it in 3D but I could tell where some of the 3D elements old have been. Its probably worth a 3D viewing and I wouldn't mind watching this film again.

Grade - A

The visual is just incredible. Many breathtaking images, and love how Ang sometimes extracts the whole screen to simply the boat or Pi with the tiger and the sky or the universe. Like the philosophical questions the film proposed throughout as well.

Life of Pi

Fantastic film. This is the type of film my gran would adore, and I hope she's going to see it - she may already have! The scenes with the tiger are great, and the scenes with the monkey are funny, all the animal scenes are just really intriguing. But it's the sentimental scenes that gripped me. If I took down my defences a little bit more I would have cried just as older Pi cried when he was telling the 2nd story at the end. I didn't think there was any need to say "so the zebra was the sailer ... and you were the tiger" because I already made that connection without having the white guy say it - but I suppose that was for less knowledgeable people in the audience.

Beautiful movie. Deserves Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Actor for younger Pi, he was sensational. Ang Lee deserves Best Director too. The 3D wasn't needed apart from a few scenes, which it was amazing. Possibly my best film of the year. It's such a pure magical adventure, and I've been dying to see a film like this in years. It just took me out of my situation and life circumstances and transported me into Pi's world - I needed that.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed more than The Expendables 2 as such, but now I totally understand what people mean when they object to comparing films of different styles and genre. It's just too hard to do. I expected more from TE2, but it still gave me an incredibly fun ride, whereas with Life of Pi, I expected a great movie but it totally blew me away, and it came along at the right time as recently I have been down.

A

The film is an absolutely breathtaking visual spectacle but comes up a bit short in selling its emotional hook. I was thrilled I saw it in 3D because it's definitely one of the best uses of the medium to date, and the special effects to bring Richard Parker the Tiger to life are nothing short of incredible. And the use of an unknown young actor in the lead role, Suraj Sharma, is inspired. However, I felt the film began to drag as it progressed, and the ending feels rather anticlimactic. I understand Ang Lee was just being faithful to the source material but it doesn't quite click. That said, the film's visual splendor makes it worth the high price of 3D admission. B

Visually astonishing, but emotionally slightly lacking, indeed.

This should win the Best Visual Effects Oscar, though.

Is the tiger entirely CGI or there is a real tiger in there from time to time?

To be honest, I couldn't tell. It's extremely well-done.

I'm pretty sure I read that some actual tigers have been used too, though.

I couldn't tell either.

It is largely a CG tiger, but there are also shots of real tigers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/movie ... of-pi.html

I just thought that the tiger on the lifeboat was real for the duration of the movie. If the CGI was THAT realistic, then kudos to the film-makers. Sublime. It doesn't change my grade in the slightest. A

So, I guess I will end up seeing this movie afterall

Pi's gonna wreck it!

Damn straight!

Amazing movie. Visuals are striking. Story, acting, music are all fantastic. I got sucked in and floated off into Pi's life for 2 hours which is all I can ask for from a great movie. 10/10 (A+)

For those who didn't know, this movie is based on an award-winning book (by my fellow countryman )

O... M... G...

What a freakin' waste of time!

A pointless religious allegory spiralling down the toilet of life.


0 out of 5.


(...and the 3D was worse than useless as usual.)

You're a hard man to please. I'm sorry that you can't have a great time at the movies like most of us can so easily.

Heh - - that's ironic - - my reputation at KJ has usually been that I'm too easy to please.

You do run a lot of movies down, I've noticed. Plus, when I see that grumpy old bastard as your avatar, it doesn't help.

He's not hard to please. He simply constantly tries to hate what most like and tries to like what most people dislike. That way, he can hope for his life to mean something, to be a little more than another drop of water in the ocean.

Yeah, I get that.

Finally, what I've been waiting to happen to KJ for as long as I've started posting here... A TROLL FIGHT!

It's true that I don't tend to like a lot of the brainless blockbusters such as Dark Knight and Transformers that are so popular nowadays - - but otherwise I would say that my chances of loving/hating any particular movie are equal to any other KJer. (Except for my fave genre of low comedy, of course!)

Have a look at my provisional list of top ten movies for 2012 and you'll see that it shares a lot of titles with other KJer's lists.