Very cool, if true

My two main thoughts on exiting Life of Pi were "And the award for best CGI Tiger goes to..." and "Life of Pi is to faith what Fight Club was to the anti-capitalist movement"*.

Life of Pi is an absolutely gorgeous movie - the cinematography is amazing, the effects are astonishing, and the overall effect is just stunning. There's a scene near the start with a swimming pool that left me with my mouth hanging open. Heck, there are a lot of scenes that left me with my mouth hanging open. The film is exceptionally faithful to the book, and it was fascinating to watch having read the book once, seeing how everything slotted into place. The story of Pi Patel, his search for meaning, the tragic events that befall him, and the way he copes with them is vividly brought to life, and I found myself thoroughly carried along by it. I can't say any more without spoiling it - but I recommend that you see it.

( Because: Spoilers )

I didn't enjoy Cloud Atlas nearly as much. It was also gorgeous (although not as impressively so), with very good performances, and a perfectly solid script. The basic idea of six interlinked stories set in different time periods is one that I love, and having the same actors play different characters in different time periods works exceedingly well.*** However, while I enjoyed it on the level of action/adventure with pretty bits, I hated the message. It would have been very easy to give the film the message "The world is frequently an awful place, and it's important to stand up for what's right, even if it puts you in immediate personal danger." - something I can solidly stand behind. However, instead, they went for the much hokier message of "Love will triumph in the end." which is something that just makes me want to track down the nearest hippie and beat them around the head with a big stick. It felt very much like they wanted a much stronger thread joining the stories together than the book had given them, and this sometimes felt more forced than I'd like. It's an honorable attempt, and I'm glad that The Wachowskis are making movies that strive for this kind of thoughtfulness and depth. I just wish I'd liked it more than I did. I'd also advise seeing this, because a lot of people liked it more than I did, and it's entirely possible that you will too.

*I instantly posted both thoughts to Facebook/Twitter, of course.
**Well, I seem to have an intrinsic belief in cause and effect. Other than that, I haven't found anything I 100% believe in.
***I recommend that once you have done (or just if you find this kind of thing fascinating), that you take a look here, where you can see the amazing job they did. I didn't recognise Hugh Grant at all in the sixth piece, and Julie didn't recognise Hugo Weaving in at least two of the time-periods. Tom Hanks continues to be an excellent actor too, I just wish he got a chance to have this level of range in other movies. Halle Berry is also forgiven for any bad movies she may have made in the past.