Let me start this off by stating how much I hate 3D movies. They are a shameless way of producing making more money and it ruins cinema. I have never once thought that 3D has significantly brought anything to a film, well I hadn’t up until this December.

Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is a masterpiece of cinema and one that shows that when in the right hands 3D can genuinely help improve the experience of cinema, who’d have thought it? The mentioned hands that this film is in are those of Academy award winning director Ang Lee, a personal favourite of mine.

It is Lee’s vision that brought this film to life, providing the audience with a cinematic experience that is pure as magical as it is unique.

Life of Pi tells the story of Piscine Patel (Pi for short), a young Indian who longs for adventure in his life. When his family decide to move to Canada and take their zoo with them a storm strikes their ship leaving Pi stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean with nothing but a few animals to keep him company. One by one the animals disappear leaving Pi with just a Bengali Tiger by the name of Richard Parker as his only company. The movie is essentially a survival story, we see Pi learn to co exist with Parker, visit an undiscovered island and experience the beauties and the dangers of the ocean.

The film is simply a visual delight and the use of 3D certainly lends its hand in helping this, countless time I jumped up out of my seat as I watched the story unfold on the screen in front of me. Though the special effects also help, Richard Parker is an outstanding creation and at times I found it hard to believe that it wasn’t actually a real tiger, it displayed more acting ability than actors in some films I saw last year!

Overall this movie was a pure delight and one of the best cinematic experiences I have ever had. If this is the future of 3D cinema then I am right behind it, however with the release of the recent Texas Chainsaw 3D I highly doubt this is the case.
Rating:*****