Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2013

For a film based on Yann Martel’s 2001 Booker Prize-winning novel that many said was unfilmable, Ang Lee has worked some kind of movie magic here, using cutting-edge filmmaking technology to create with overwhelming verve and sheer visual mastery an exquisitely beautiful example of old-fashioned cinematic storytelling. If you don’t know the premise, in a nutshell it’s about a shipwrecked teenage Indian boy who finds himself sharing a very small lifeboat with a very large and very hungry Bengal tiger. No attempt is made to sentimentalize or anthropomorphize the tiger. It remains a big, lethal beast that will gobble him up at the slightest opportunity. His only chance for survival is to make it recognize him as the alpha male. This riotously colorful, spiritual yet grounded parable for life and its limitless number of possibilities is a movie milestone. Enchanting as well as ambitious, it will satisfy New Agers and adventure fans alike. Call it a backhanded compliment, but I have never seen that odious 3-D technology better employed. Better than Hugo, or even Avatar. Lee avoids cheap tricks and uses it only to enhance the storytelling and add, well, dimension. Didn’t care for the flat coda.