Life of Pi never loses the focus on the story

Life of Pi (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) 20th Century Fox

½ out of 5 Those that have read Yann Martel’s novel about an Indian boy who ends up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat with a tiger probably thought the same thing as me: “They’re going to make a movie out of that?!”

Well, make it they did and director Ang Lee put together something that combines the emotional force of his Brokeback Mountain and the visual spectacle of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Despite having to cut out various parts of the novel, the film stays true to its message and takes viewers through every emotion, thanks in no small part to the performance of firsttime actor Suraj Sharma in the title role.

After Sharma, though, the true stars of the picture are the visual effects. Even in scenes you know are computer generated, you never lose focus on the story — a testament to the realism of the graphics.

Among the special features can be found detailed documentaries on how all of those images came to be in much greater detail than you’ll find on most discs. The scope of the work that went into creating onscreen tigers (some shots were a real tiger, others were CGI), waves, a sinking ship, seastorms and more is mind-blowing. One shot that lasts maybe 30 seconds on screen, for example, required more than two years to create the effects.

The documentaries mostly look at how the imagery in the film was created and while there is a bit of repetition throughout them, each builds on the other to give a complete look at how it all came together.