Life of Pi

This movie was great! I, unlike my mom and sister, have not read the book.
The concept is simple. Pi (played for the majority of the film by Suraj Sharma) is alone on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, named Richard Parker. His family, who owned a zoo in French India, but decided to sell the land and move to Canada. However, along the way a bad storm comes upon them, which causes the ship to become a perilous situation. Pi, venturing out to see the storm, notices tons of water coming on the ship. He falls into a lifeboat and a zebra joins him. Eventually, a wild hyena and orangutan and tiger also joins him. However, the hyena kills both the zebra and orangutan before being killed by the tiger. Pi is also risking his life every time he ventures on board the tiny lifeboat as he spends the majority of his time on a raft he made for himself.
Life is utterly awful for him, with little water and only crackers to eat. He learns how to catch fish for Richard Parker but he does not eat them himself until a whale comes along and he looses all his crackers, because Pi is a vegetarian. Soon, Richard Parker and Pi learn how to coexist but nothing more.
Just as Pi finally gives up on life, he arrives on an island filled with meerkats. But, for some reason, the island becomes toxic at night, so he loads up on food and continues his journey, eventually arriving at Mexico, where the tiger just disappears, leaving Pi alone and devastated.
The story does have a happy ending, as the main story is framed by adult Pi (The Amazing Spiderman's Irrfan Khan) is telling his childhood and his craziest adventure to an unnamed author (Rafe Spall). He is married and has two children, so everything there works out.
The main part of the story that leaves you wondering is whether the story with the tiger is right or whether the even more tragic one he told to the Japanese authorities doing an investigation about the ship's sinking. I decide to believe the one with the tiger, but we will never know.
Though the plot is vital to every film, this film relies more on the acting, which is great, especially from the newcomer Suraj Sharma. But the cinematography (by Claudio Miranda) is amazing, certainly some of the best I've ever seen. The CGI are also fantastic as the tigers and animals seemed as real as possible.
This film may not have completely moved me, but it is certainly one of the best I've seen so far this year, not as good as Argo, but a great film nevertheless, and this is one that the whole family can watch. Grade: A