Thursday, January 17, 2013

Life of Pi (2012)






Life of Pi (2012) is a movie that I was sure I wasn't going to see... The trailer indicated this would be some sort of crappy/cheesy magical tale about human perseverance and some sort of destiny fulfillment.

Then the Oscars nominations came out and I have to admit that stirred up some curiosity, but still not enough to get me to go to the cinema. It was only when a few key people told me the movie was incredible that I had to swallow my pride and give the film a chance. Expectations were built and I had to make plans to see if as soon as possible... and in 3D (something that I'm not a fan of).

So what can I tell you after I saw Piscine's (Pi) adventures yesterday?

Well... the movie visually is brilliant, I can tell you that. Ang Lee did a remarkable job in that aspect, which is without a doubt the main highlight, however, movies don't just live out of special effects, nice sceneries and photography. They need good acting and content... something that keeps you going.

Life of Pi has none of that, at least to the scale that would make it worthy of the reviews it has gotten so far. To certain extent, it felt like I was watching a crossover between Avatar (2009) with Castaway (2000), only you didn't had Tom Hanks as a leading man. When I refer to this mix, I'm obviously making reference to the aesthetics of it alongside the "one man show " concept, performed by the Indian actor, Suraj Sharma. Can't say he's bad on it... in fact, I acknowledge I might be a little unfair considering the position he was placed. It's a great responsibility to carry a film almost on your own. In my (humble) opinion, I believe if you are going to do that, you need to make sure you are betting in the right actor to do that... and there aren't many who would be able to deliver something capable of driving an audience for over two hours.

And yeah... it's too long! Just tooooooooo long!! There is very little content to go around for a movie going more than two hours. Even with plenty of eye candy and a fantastic touch near the end, it is still not sufficient.

Well... we all know how movies are such a subjective theme... You can love it or hate it without being right or wrong (although many, many times it feels like it)... But I really can't understand why people are enthusiastic about this one. 8.3 on iMDB? 89% good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes? 11 Oscar nominations?

No, no, no! At the very best it's a nice movie... nothing more!

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