Life of Pi Reviews
We Got This Covered
Ang Lee's Life of Pi is a visual masterpiece, often transcending the boundaries of special effects and what they're capable of, but the film's actual story is hollow.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Boston Phoenix
Life poses as a spiritual experience, but it's more like a postcard.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
The Ooh Tray
I thought of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the King of Swamp Castle's determination to build on that sodden earth. It stayed up in the end but it wouldn't take much for it to fall over.
Las Vegas Weekly
Maybe Life of Pi isn't entirely unfilmable, but Lee wasn't quite able to conquer it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Fan The Fire
The morals of the story don't come through, while the film's extensive metaphors are belatedly rammed down your throat like a get out of jail free card.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Little White Lies
There's less than meets the eye in Lee's ultimately unsatisfying fable.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
HitFix
... I found it to be a heart-breaking experience to see this much good work used in service of a story that is, ultimately, nothing but empty calories, a spiritual shell game.
Full Review
| Original Score: C+
Movieline
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 on a page.
Full Review
| Original Score: 6/10
Top CriticLife of Pi manages occasional spiritual wonder through its 3-D visuals but otherwise sinks like a stone.
EntertainmentTell
It's got amazing visuals and a handful of really great moments, but ultimately it just doesn't hold together.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
NewsBlaze
A manipulative faith-based tall tale intimating the question, can the bells and whistles of a Hollywood movie make you believe in God? Time to put out a call for the separation of Church and Hollywood. The Verdict: Richard Parker, you're no Moby Dick.
Cinema Crazed
Endorses the notion of blind faith, and denial as a positive character trait.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
HollywoodChicago.com
It is a story for which its elements are remarkably defined, underlined, and presented as lesson for you to learn. It features such striking imagery and yet it tells so much more than it shows.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5.0
RedEye
Ultimately becomes a heavy story that's deceptively shallow.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
WaffleMovies.com
The only way to truly enjoy Life of Pi is by bringing a pumpkin pie with you to the movie theater.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
The movie invites you to believe in all kinds of marvelous things, but it also may cause you to doubt what you see with your own eyes - or even to wonder if, in the end, you have seen anything at all.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
"Pi" is a wonder to see; too bad it's not wondrous to feel.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
Reason Online
More than just a rip-roaring boy's adventure. Much more, unfortunately.
The movie's energy peters out in a series of book-club conversations about divine will, the power of storytelling, and the resilience of the human spirit.
