Thrilling 3d in Life of Pi

In the trailer for Life of Pi, you can see a panicked zebra swimming towards you in the claustrophobic confines of a ship’s cabin, a phosphorescent whale soaring out of a luminous green ocean, a tiger striking out at the screen with explosive carnal energy. These moments alone are reason enough to go and see this film in 3D. In Life of Pi, Ang Lee legitimises the use of a cinematic technique that has been maligned as expensive, distracting and artificial – 3D runs the risk of being so hyperrealised that it ironically prevents you from immersing yourself in a film's fictional world. Instead, it systematically jolts you into remembering, by its very almost-realness, that that world is not real. But at its best, 3D has the power to make you want to plunge into the realm behind the screen, and this is what Lee achieves with such splendour.

Occasionally the 3D in Life of Pi does jar – once or twice Lee falls prey to the temptation to make the audience believe something is poking straight out of the screen at them, which immediately feels gimmicky and false. When you are looking down the length of a pole Pi uses as a weapon against the tiger, the sensation is more like being anachronistically plonked in a Disney World 3D simulator, flailing your arms impotently and failing to convince yourself that the object you see on screen is actually tangible in your hand.

But for the most part, 3D beautifully enhances an already beautiful film. The opening credit sequence alone is enough to convince – every animal, from powder-pink flamingos on a rippling lake to cantankerous orangutans reposing in the trees, feels enticingly within touching distance. You can almost smell the intoxicating odours of the Pondicherry zoo that Pi's family call home. And the stunning scenescapes – raging oceanic storms, flat expanses of sea reflecting smoky ochre clouds, an inconsequential lifeboat bobbing below a silvery hoard of flying fish – all feel so exquisite precisely because they are realised in 3D.

The feeling of being immersed in this film is not simply due to the 3D effects, however. It must also be attributed to Suraj Sharma, the debut Indian actor who plays Pi with such warmth and authenticity, and who makes you believe every hardship of his 227 days stranded at sea with just a hostile tiger for company. And the tiger itself must also be acknowledged as an astounding CGI creation that absolutely looks real, from each menacing growl to every quivering strand of fur. What feels truly miraculous is that the relationship between Pi and this tiger (with whom Sharma could not, of course, physically act) is utterly believable – the evolution from the tiger’s primal instinct to eat Pi to boy and beast forming a convincing, peaceful relationship driven by mutual desperation, without artificial anthropomorphism of the tiger or a saccharine contrivance of the plot, gives this film its heart.

Yet although I appreciated Life of Pi for its visual sumptuousness, its captivating narrative and its human warmth, I have not been left with a resounding sense of being challenged or provoked. Lee has clear messages to convey: stay true to yourself in the face of adversity; do not give up hope; never fail to say a proper goodbye to those you love. But this very clarity ironically undermines the film’s power; I don’t want these messages spelt out for me by a contrived expositional frame story, in which a writer is soliciting (and painstakingly, patronisingly explaining back to us) the adult Pi’s story. This is not the novel, it is the film, and I wish Lee had had enough faith in his medium and in his audience to let his own incredible visual and storytelling prowess do the work in a much more subtle and emotionally true way.

But absolutely go and see this film. It will make you believe in the true power of storytelling and allow you to indulge in a visual and technological feast. It may even leave you with the strange sensation that you would like to befriend a wild, resplendent, elusive and strangely comforting adult Bengal tiger.

Follow me on twitter @BetweentheReeds