Veteran filmmakers will warn you, don’t film at sea and don’t work with animals. Ang Lee built a vast tank in Taiwan and he whips...
The Spectator September 4, 2018 While you are bathing in all the beauty, you are waiting and waiting and waiting for this film to say something, yet when it finally does… it all j...
With "Life of Pi," Lee outdoes himself visually, without a doubt setting a new standard for 3-D, a technology Hollywood has mostly abused with...
RogerEbert.com November 21, 2012 Ang Lee’s "Life of Pi" is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery.
With Life of Pi, Lee takes on a not-so-crouching tiger to bring audiences a wondrously enthralling adventure fable.
Globe and Mail November 21, 2012 Every once in a long while, the right director comes across the right project at just the right moment, and things so often discordant fall in...
Though the film’s setup trudges and its closing is too pat, that hour or so on the raft is something special, and few would dive into the sto...
Newsday November 20, 2012 "Life of Pi" is an absolutely gorgeous movie, aglow with color and filled with wraparound 3-D effects.
Rolling Stone November 20, 2012 Life of Pi puts 3D in the hands of a worldclass film artist. Ang Lee uses 3D with the delicacy and lyricism of a poet. You don’t just wa...
MSN Movies November 19, 2012 … the movie handles an alternate version of the story, and its ramifications, in an almost shockingly perfunctory manner. Which I think, in th...
Guardian December 20, 2012 Despite some lovely images and those eyepopping effects, it is a shallow and self-important shaggy-dog story – or shaggy-tiger story – an...
Austin Chronicle January 8, 2013 When adrift with Pi and the tiger on the open sea, the film is at its most wondrous: a ravishing spectacle that treads judiciously on the infinite...
Film.com September 28, 2012 There isn’t a dull moment in the film, and there are about 300 worthy of a "wow."
Chicago Reader November 21, 2012 Ang Lee’s signature style – tasteful, measured, and devoid of personality – translates surprisingly well to 3-D.
Movieline November 20, 2012 Lee’s movie is a grand gesture of filmmaking pushed to its furthest technical edges, but hemmed in and confined by its fidelity to words...
Sight & Sound July 31, 2018 Lee shows his hero’s imperilled position as a mixed blessing. By tottering on the ledge of his mortality, Pi gains a front-row seat...
CNN.com November 21, 2012 This transcendent fable carries a real sting in its tail. Ang Lee has made a bold and wondrous movie, one of his best.
ReelViews November 21, 2012 There’s an audience out there for this movie, but the question is whether they will find it.
Detroit News November 21, 2012 "Pi" is a wonder to see; too bad it’s not wondrous to feel.
Slant Magazine October 1, 2012 The second act shifts the film from a lazy and comfy litany of introductions to a riveting fantasia of pure cinema.
Daily Telegraph December 20, 2012 Yes, this is fantasy cinema. One man, alone with his wonderment, suspended between sky and sea.
TimeOut December 11, 2012 Flawed, yes, but marvellously ambitious, and unforgettably gorgeous to look at.
Village Voice November 20, 2012 Life of Pi manages occasional spiritual wonder through its 3-D visuals but otherwise sinks like a stone.
It is a story for which its elements are remarkably defined, underlined, and presented as lesson for you to learn. It features such striking i...
timeoutchicago.com November 22, 2012 Most admirably, Life of Pi resists turning its remarkably realistic, digitally created feline into a friend or pet.
Hollywood Reporter September 28, 2012 A gorgeous and accomplished rendering of the massive best-seller.
Lee is a wizard, Life of Pi is an incredible spectacle and the technical effects are brilliant.
Magical realism was rarely so magical and never before so real.
Shockya.com September 29, 2012 Lee grounds it just enough to deem credible, but also question everything experienced, and when you find yourself fighting for the parts you believ...
ScreenCrush November 26, 2012 Didn’t convince me to believe in God, but it did make me believe in the power of cinema.
The film is transcendent.
A boy, and a tiger, and a vast, endless ocean. Ang Lee makes a film out of material that seems almost unfilmable, and a lot of...
As much as I hate a lot of the writing, it’s a movie you’ve got to see on the big screen.
Movie Mom November 20, 2012 Ang Lee’s exquisitely beautiful fairy tale story of an Indian boy shipwrecked with a Bengal tiger, and their journey home.
Financial Times December 20, 2012 Is Lee’s film a fable? Is it an adventure? No, it’s a super-movie.
Everything looks beautiful in Life of Pi.
Salon.com November 19, 2012 I felt like I’d been invited to a seven-course dinner, and all seven turned out to be cake – and then the host insisted on deliveri...
Sight & Sound July 31, 2018 Lee shows his hero’s imperilled position as a mixed blessing. By tottering on the ledge of his mortality, Pi gains a front-row seat...
Guardian September 30, 2012 Hollywood has been waiting for this movie. Get ready for the year of the Tiger.
New York Post November 21, 2012 It’s so hypnotically beautiful that people will be using it to calibrate their new TV monitors.
Los Angeles Times November 20, 2012 There are always moral crosscurrents in Lee’s most provocative work, but so magical and mystical is this parable, it’s as if the filmma...
Austin Chronicle January 8, 2013 When adrift with Pi and the tiger on the open sea, the film is at its most wondrous: a ravishing spectacle that treads judiciously on the infinite...
CinemaBlend November 20, 2012 It’s a movie cinema lovers can rally behind and gawk at forever.
Toronto Star November 21, 2012 Claudio Miranda’s luminous camera, set to Mychael Danna’s intoxicating score, captures all manner of wild delights.
An adventure yarn that is gloriously old-fashioned – and often just glorious.
indieWire September 28, 2012 That Ang Lee has managed to turn the limitations of the material into his adaptation’s greatest strength make "Life of Pi" into a signif...
A movie that can’t be dismissed because there is too much in it but can’t be embraced because it’s all spread too thin.
Irish Times December 21, 2012 Life of Pi is chiefly to be recommended for the punch of its core story. Never mind the cod-philosophical breadth – feel the impressive emotio...
New Yorker November 20, 2012 The film, at its best, celebrates the idiosyncratic wonders and dangers of raw, ravaging nature.
Like that other "unfilmable" novel, Cloud Atlas, it has, of course, been turned into a movie – with rather happier results.
Empire Magazine December 17, 2012 To produce a coherent film from Martel’s tricky novel would be achievement enough, but Ang Lee has extracted something beautiful, wise a...
Arizona Republic November 20, 2012 If the story, based on the popular novel by Yann Martel, can’t quite keep pace with the look of the film (and, alas, it can’t) it will...
