Movie Review: Life of Pi
What if Castaway met We Bought a Zoo, which met New Age religion, which met National Geographic of animals, which all then met the movie Joe Versus the Volcano? That essentially what you have in the new movie, Life of Pi.
Based on the best-selling book by Yann Martel (published in 2001), which was part of Oprah’s recommended book, the movie is gaining popular and critical acclaim.
To its credit, Life of Pi is a story that immediately takes you in. At risk of spoiling the plot, we meet a young Indian boy (“Pi”) whose family owns a zoo. Due to bad circumstances, they must move to North American and en route their boat sinks.
The rest of the movie we sees Pi’s struggle to survive, which includes some stunning cinematic images of animals and nature. There is a plot twist at the end too that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud.
Be that as it may, the movie is just plain gross in places. Its PG rating is too low (should have been PG-13), and the way it treats religion is plain dangerous.
The storyline essentially tries to put Jesus Christ on a shelf with millions of other gods, sadly not a rare phenomenon in the Eastern, New Age world. As other movie reviewers have pointed out, the movie is syncretism on the silver screen. Jesus, however, is not A way to God, He is THE way (John 14).
Young adults and especially children would have too much difficulty not being riveted by the storyline and movie, so the movie is subversive. In spite of some good qualities, Life of Pi is not a movie I can safely recommend.