LIFE OF PI Review

Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" is the best use of 3D in any film since the inception of the technology's use, even superior to "Avatar." It's the prime example of how to expand the possibilities of the medium. In every meticulous detail, the film is transcendent and awash in magical realism. Adapted from the worldwide bestseller by Yann Martel, the novel was likely regarded by its readers (I am not one of them) as an impossible translation to the big screen. Yet much in the way you have to believe the extraordinary story of a boy stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger, you have to believe in Ang Lee as a director. Every so often, the right person for the right project comes along, and the result is unbridled imagination and confidence. This is something special, a one-of-a-kind experience that sinks into your soul. It's also one of the very best films of the year.

It all begins and ends with the power of storytelling. As an adult, Piscine Patel (Irrfan Khan) recalls his life journey to an author (Rafe Spall) who wants to write about it. We first learn of the origin of Pi's full name, which is French for swimming pool, but of course his schoolmates refer to him as "pee." Pi outsmarts them, however, reinventing his name around the mathematical constant beginning with 3.14. Pi grew up surrounded by his family's zoo in Pondichery, India, and Lee -- with the help of cinematographer Claudio Miranda -- shows us Pi's childhood full of clever whimsy.

As a young boy, Pi (Ayush Tandon) learns a valuable lesson about the dangers of animals from his father. It's a crucial moment between Pi and the zoo's tiger, named Richard Parker, when the boy learns of life's harsh realities for the first time. Fast forward to his family's zoo going broke forcing them to sell and move to Canada. Now older, Pi (Suraj Sharma) experiences a tragic shipwreck during their trip abroad, and his family is never seen again. He's left stranded on a life boat with a zebra, hyena and an orangutan in a microcosm of a food chain. And then emerges Richard Parker as both a blessing and curse.

The bulk of the film takes place out on sea as we watch the evolving relationship between Pi and Richard Parker. The CGI, motion-capture technology used to bring the ferociousness of the Bengal tiger to life is astonishing. The movement, sounds, actions and most importantly feelings of Richard Parker are fully realized and make a living, breathing creature out of thin air. Pi learns to co-exist with the animal on their tiny, mobile island across a vast expanse of blue sea, which refers back to the movie's ingenius use of 3D as a storytelling element. Picture this: a tiny white speck of a boat in the open water reflecting back the sky, creating a complete sense of infinity and isolation. There's no question Lee's film is a visual masterpiece.

"Life of Pi" is very much a rumination on religion and faith as the young Pi takes on Christianity, Hinduism and Islam all at once and, later in life, wonders what God's plan for him was all along during his sea voyage. And the story seems almost mystical, especially once a meerkat-covered island comes into play, and it begs the question of how much can you believe? But in the end, it's a poignant and moving film about seeing what life deals out to you and learning that sometimes you have to be ready to let go.

Archive: 'The Incredible Hulk'

Movie Review
The Incredible Hulk (2008)


"The Incredible Hulk" is the second of recent superhero movies starring the big green smashing giant. The first reintroduction was 2003's "The Hulk," which was directed by Ang Lee. Now, I liked Ang Lee's stylistically daring and narrative approach to retelling the story of the Hulk. Too bad nobody else did, hence it's reason for tanking at the box office. So, now we have "The Incredible Hulk" that's not so much a sequel as it is yet another reintroduction to satisfy those who didn't get enough of the Hulk smashing stuff last time around. For them, this is the ideal superhero movie starring the Hulk. For everybody else, it's passable entertainment.

Remember how "Iron Man" didn't feel like a superhero movie? Well, "The Incredible Hulk" sure does. But then again, maybe it was intentional to go the more traditional route because unlike its partner and predecessor, this one's definitely a straightforward superhero movie. There's not much of an intriguingly complex plot here because it basically boils down to the Hulk facing off against a clear-cut nemesis on three different occasions. The movie opens with introductory credits showing a series of images to quickly explain how Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) got infected by gamma radiation. This brushing over of the entire Hulk back story allows Lee's 2003 version to be simply erased from memory. The new version skips over all the interesting stuff, and we first join Banner in South America as he's still running from the military.

Banner is trying to keep a low profile, but a mishap at a factory alerts General Ross (William Hurt) of Banner's location. A tactical team led by a man by the name of Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) goes into capture Banner, and after so many days without incident, they see the Hulk for the first time. Banner breaks away, though, and the chase leads them all back to the United States where Banner reunites with his former love, Betty Rose (Liv Tyler). In the 2003 version, Betty Rose was appalled at her father, the general, for trying to use Banner for his power to create an army of super Hulk creatures. Here, she's still upset with him, but much less time is devoted to any emotional resonance. In both movies, too, Banner and Rose are in love but are unable to show it. Here, though, the relationship feels so much less sincere, and we feel no attachment or connection to these two people.

I'm still stuck on the issue that maybe Edward Norton wasn't the best choice to play the man who transforms into the big, hulking beast. Eric Bana perfectly played the tortured soul, while Norton seems to only skim the surface. I know that he's a good actor, so it just feels like here he wasn't even trying. Jennifer Connelly played a much better Betty Rose than Liv Tyler who is surprisingly awkward throughout. It makes the sense of affection between the two of them entirely lifeless. Tim Roth plays a fine villain even if that really only involves a lot of sneering. William Hurt, though, is oddly bland for a man hunting down the Hulk. It's funny that Robert Downey Jr. appears for a 30 second cameo and steals the whole show.

Louis Leterrier, director of the "Transporter" movies, decided to take the action-packed route, so it's a good thing these action sequences are persistently thrilling. The sequences involve a lot of military men unloading rounds of automatic weapons into the raging giant. It all builds up to a final encounter between the Hulk and Blonsky, who gets injected with the same Hulk juices and becomes even more of a monstrosity. The two of them duke it out in the streets of New York, and this final climactic brawl certainly delivers. But there's no real motive for the brawl because we still aren't even sure if that's really Bruce Banner behind those glaring green eyes. There's a disconnection between Bruce Banner and the Hulk even apart from the fact of them having zero resemblance to each another. The movie lacks that psychological drama of a man opposite his superhero counterpart, and the continuities between Banner and the green giant are distractingly minuscule.

The special effects are, well, good. Obviously a lot of time and care went into making the Hulk look as realistic as a giant green man possibly can. He's no longer the same bright green and is substituted this time with a grayer green tinge. It feels like this Marvel outing is more for the fans than anything. There are cameos made by both Lou Ferrigno and Stan Lee. Ferrigno's voice is even used for the Hulk himself, and during one point he shouts out, "Hulk smash!" The movie's ending and surprise cameo suggests there's some sort of Marvel superhero collaboration in the making. More so, though, it suggests what a resounding success "Iron Man 2" will be. This reinvention of the Hulk offers, like its lurking protagonist, big, dumb, violent excitement. It probably wasn't the best idea to end with that clever cameo by Tony Stark, though, because then viewers sit there realizing how less fun, less sophisticated, and less witty "The Incredible Hulk" is and how much better "Iron Man" was.

An Iconic Woodstock Caught In A Haze

Taking Woodstock


The trailers for "Taking Woodstock" had me thinking this was going to be some awards bait with the indisputably great director Ang Lee ("Brokeback Mountain") taking viewers back to the revolution, grace, and chaos of the infamous Woodstock Music Festival of forty years ago. Turns out this wasn't the case. Instead, Lee sits back too casually for his own good supplying a film that is gentle, humorous, and heartwarming, but is never impactive or even memorable. Any striking moments or images evaporate quickly from the screen and any lingering feelings dissipate after having walked out of the theater. This is too light of entertainment for a massive event that deserves much more. Sustaining a meandering and ambling tone, it certainly doesn't help that the existence of Michael Wadleigh's documentary "Woodstock" emphasizes this movie's shortcomings.

Lee deliberately went for the backstage perspective as we follow the story of Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin) who unintentionally sparks the entire musical festival and brings forth the hippie movement. The film really boils down to the personal transformation of Elliot mirroring the cultural transformation taking place around him. It's apparent this is what Lee was shooting for, and he succeeds, yes, but only marginally so. Elliot's coming-of-age, and consequently his coming-out, story gets bogged down and diluted by the traffic jam of everything else going on. None of it connects emotionally, and everything any character says or does onscreen really has no resonance to stir viewers, and such a loss is impossible to ignore.

Elliot is an interior designer who leaves New York to head upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated old motel where they're so strapped for cash that they charge $1 for a towel. Elliot becomes a stay-at-home son because he feels obligated, which prevents him from getting on with his own life. His mother, Sonia (Imelda Staunton), is a loud, oppressive, yet good-hearted Russian immigrant who has an endless fear of poverty. Her ever-suffering husband by her side is Jake (Henry Goodman) who just goes along for the ride. Elliot learns that a nearby town has refused a permit for the music festival, and so, as the head of the Bethel Chamber of Commerce, he offers the permit. He persuades a dairy farmer named Max (Eugene Levy) to let the barrage of hippies come and use his expansive acres of land to host the event. Little did Elliot know what he was creating, and soon he gets bombarded by angry locals and a sea of cars and foot traffic heading his way for Woodstock.

And yet what is a movie about Woodstock without the music? The majority of the focus shies away from focusing on any of the music playing at the concert itself. Any footage of Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, name your band, they're all absent. We do, however, get to hear some music echoing in the distance as Elliot stands atop the hill at Woodstock and watches as the crowd before him turns into a sea of waving colors, light, and motion. A cool moment, a moment brought on by Elliot dropping some acid. The spotlight is on how the festival got started, how it got set up, and all that comes with a behind the scenes looks. The cultural period look of the 60s is spot-on, and Lee's attention to detail is impeccable. And while all of that is interesting, the real excitement comes with the actual reveal of the musical event which, once it does finally arrive, is disappointingly brief.

An oddball and colorful cast of characters outshine Demetri Martin, whose bland performance ends up subsiding into the backdrop. Among them are an ex-Marine transvestite named Vilma who volunteers to be the concert security, played entirely straight by Liev Schreiber; the concert organizer who is chill and rides around on a horse, Michael Lang (stage actor Jonathan Groff); Elliot's buddy who returned from Vietnam, Billy (Emile Hirsch), who is strung-out and anxious; and even a couple of concert-goers (Paul Dano and Kelli Garner) who invite Elliot into their psychedelic VW van. But we never follow these characters fully enough, which causes the film's feel of inconsequentiality. With "Taking Woodstock," Ang Lee took grand ambitions and mashed them into a result that appears to be purposely frustrating in thwarting audiences' desires. We stand watching from a hazy distance those "three days of peace and music," but we never end up seeing any of it really at all.