The remarkable “Life of Pi”

The Life of Pi, originally a best-selling book, just recently hit theaters in 3D. Directed by Ang Lee, who also directed Brokeback Mountain and Hulk, took a seemingly impossible book to make into a movie, and created a masterpiece.

A teenage boy named Pi (played by Suraj Sharma) loses his family in a shipwreck and is the lone survivor. He ends up on a life raft with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. The story takes you through a wild adventure in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean as Pi learns to make due with what he has, and keep a tiger happy so it doesn’t turn against him.

Exquisitely captured in 3D, the movie but doesn’t overpower you with objects flying towards you, but creates excitement with the occasional jumping fish or growling tiger. Lee creates a movie where you can virtually smell the water, and live like Pi does.

Sharma not only creates a completely believable teenager who needs to survive with a tiger but also takes basically a solo role and composes himself in a way that makes you root for him and the Bengal tiger over the course of the whole movie.

Other actors that appear at the beginning and the end are well-portrayed, and don’t overwhelm the viewer with too much of a back-story. They only add to show you Pi’s personality and the struggles he has had to go through.

From glowing algae, to sharks and whales, to jumping fish and massive storms, Pi survives to tell his story to a curious stranger who was told that Pi had an incredible story to tell.

Full of twists and turns, “Life of Pi” tells the remarkable story of a teenage boy thrown into one of the most deadly environments, with a tiger, and survives. And the end, to say the least, will make you question the entire movie. But that’s just part of the fun.