Always a good idea to read the book before you see a movie. Especially if it is a well known adaptation. I read very little of Life of Pi (honestly due to my own sloth) since the night before. So I have no clue to if David Magee (Finding Neverland) has cut a few important parts from the final rendition of Yann Martel’s best seller. But from what I hear, the ones that were required were retained. And retained well at that.
Ang Lee has always been one to pick movies that are painstakingly painted. At the expense of being horribly slow. Life of Pi is actually fast as compared to most of his previous ventures – almost like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (both in terms of pace as well as special effects).
Life of Pi has its stunning moments which can come to life only on the big screen. The flying fish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the bright Jelly Fish in the middle of the night with the Blue Whale deciding to rocket through, the carnivorous island that turns neon green at night or the scenes of Richard Parker roaring to define his territory like a Royal Bengal Tiger would. While I saw it in 2D in a random theatre in Goa, I am quite certain, the 3D version would be brilliant.
But all of this comes at the expense of a lot of factors. To begin with, there is very little acting on display. The entire cast except Suraj Sharma has very little time on screen. Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu, Adil Hussain and Gerard Depardieu are all fantastic actors to say the least but all of them put together have lesser screen time than Suraj Sharma. But Suraj Sharma has done brilliantly well to say the least.
There are also startling consistency errors that one would not expect from Ang Lee. Starting from how in the blazes does Richard Parker, manage to get the goat through the bars of its cage? Or how is there absolutely still water in the middle of the Pacific? Or how Pi (Suraj Sharma) can speak English without an accent and Pi (Irrfan Khan) suddenly develops one.
I would have also liked it if Ang Lee had stuck to Tamil with the entire Indian cast instead of pushing the screenplay in English. It would have turned out to be far more believable and distracted the audience from some of the obvious errors. I personally liked Life of Pi because of its stunning effects and so am giving it 7 on 10. Definitely watch over the weekend and decide for yourself.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2646320921/
Nice catch on the accent error. I loved the movie, especially the special effects. I agree on the native language part too, just that I think would have had an impact on the collections.
ReplyDelete-Siddharth