Finally got around to seeing this one! And, boy, was it not worth the wait.On the plus side: it's really pretty. The CGI, which is mostly everything in the movie, looks great, very seamless. As far as human performances, young lead Suraj Sharma does a fantastic job of looking like a starving castaway and falling off the boat a lot.
The negatives are pretty much everything else.
Pi Patel (Surej Sharma) and his family are moving from Pondicherry, India to Canada with their zoo animals when the freighter they are on sinks over the Marianas Trench. Pi finds himself the only human survivor, forced to share a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger. Fairly quickly, only Pi and the tiger are left. For nearly a year, Pi drifts across the Pacific with only a fully-stocked-for-40 lifeboat and an 800-lb carnivore. Every time it seems like hope is lost, some sort of miracle occurs until finally, Pi washes ashore in Mexico.
That's not a spoiler. The whole movie is narrated by adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) to a writer (Rafe Spall).
Have you ever seen a movie about a castaway? It's pretty much the same thing every time. Shipwreck, lost supplies, fishing, going a little crazy, storms, beauty of nature, blah blah blah. The whole thing is supposed to be an allegory for faith but I found it to be handled with all the subtlety and nuance as a wet fart in church.
Christy and Christina liked it, though, so your mileage may vary. As is, I think it's probably a contender in several categories but no way would I have nominated it for Best Picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment