Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” is the best-looking film I’ve seen this year, and possibly so far this century. It’s so hypnotically beautiful that people will be using it to calibrate their new TV monitors.
Deploying 3-D more effectively than any movie since “Avatar,” it boasts computer-generated effects, especially a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, that are truly jaw-dropping.
Part Indian travelogue, part nature documentary, part adventure and part multicultural religious allegory, the fantastical and New Age-y “Life of Pi” is a family-friendly art film that, like so much expensive Hollywood product these days, seems to be aimed primarily at an international audience.
To describe it in somewhat flippant (but not totally inaccurate) showbiz shorthand, basically this is “Cast Away” in a lifeboat, substituting a shipwrecked Indian teenager and Richard Parker for Tom Hanks and the volleyball he names Wilson.
Suraj Sharma, the 17-year-old newcomer who plays Pi(scine) Patel — who is orphaned when a Japanese freighter taking his family to Canada goes down in a scary storm — does a fine job and gets better as the film goes along.
But even at his best, Sharma doesn’t have sufficient acting chops — or enough Hanks-like charisma — to hold the screen alone for more than 70 minutes with the CGI Richard Parker (as well as a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a rat who quickly become food for the ravenous tiger).
We know from the outset that Pi will survive, as the story is narrated as part of a series of whimsical flashbacks narrated by the middle-aged Pi (the soulful Indian actor Irrfan Khan).
He’s relating his tale to a fictional version of author Yann Martel (Rafe Spall), who in real life turned “Life of Pi” into an international best seller.
Another problem is that to keep the film safely in PG-rated territory, it’s clear even before the shipwreck that no blood will be spilled. The camera discreetly pulls away when Pi’s dad demonstrates Richard Parker’s carnivorous nature to his incautious son by feeding the tiger a live goat.
A certain tedium inevitably begins to set in even as Pi sets out to train Richard Parker on the lifeboat, with both of them struggling to survive for 227 days. And a sequence where this odd couple finds a brief respite on an island populated by meerkats seems like a concept that worked better on the printed page.
“Life of Pi” certainly has lots of thrilling moments, but even Lee’s best work — “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is the main exception — tends to move at a pace that’s relatively languorous even by American indie standards.
Lee and his screenwriter, David Magee, straddle a fine line between magical realism and fantasy that may not go down all that well with American audiences drawn in by all that eye candy.
I’m comfortable with recommending “Life of Pi” as a spectacular visual experience — the night scenes are especially stunning, and I really wish this film were being offered on IMAX screens.
But fair warning: There’s a late twist that made me feel like the filmmakers pulled the rug out from under me.