02/03/2012 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Pi review

Maximillian "Max" Cohen (Sean Gullette) is the narrator and math addict who theorizes about numbers. He interacts with his mentor Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis) while suffering from a lot of disorders such as headaches, paranoia, hallucinations, and social anxiety disorder. Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman) strikes a conversation with Max.

Its screenplay was wonderful with the quotes from Max – “There are patterns everywhere in nature.” “I'm trying to understand our world. I don't deal with petty materialists like you.” Some of the theories were enthralling and logical. The score was upbeat much like the rest of the directors films and acting was sincere. Topics relating to mathematics, religion, fixations, illusions, being at peace and sense of reality were portrayed in Pi, a good thrille...

Rating of
3/4 

12/17/2011 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

"Pi" by Yojimbo

The worlds of religion and big business clash over the talents of a mathematics prodigy who becomes obsessed with finding a formula that can explain the underlying pattern of existence. Pi was Darren Aronofsky's debut film and is an experimental little affair that reminded me in a lot of ways of David Lynch's Eraserhead. It has the same grainy, black and white photography and surreal, almost nightmarish quality. It contains a lot of theoretical sounding scientific jargon, but to me it felt a bit more like new age hoodoo than genuine science making it far from the profound experience I was expecting. It's certainly an interesting film with some effective imagery and quality performances and shows the potential Aronofsky possessed in the field of film making. More a taster than a complete p...

Rating of
2.5/4 

09/20/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

90%

Action: 3/3 + Comedy: 1/2 + Good vs Evil: 1/1 + Love/Sex: 1/1 + Special Effects: 1/1 + Plot: 1/1 + Music: 1/1 = 90% or 9/10.

Pi is a number which has never been discovered to completion. Even computers have only rounded it to a few hundred decimal places. Similarly, there are other patterns with intial formulas that are not yet fully discovered: the stock market, numerology within religion.

The main figure here suffers as Icarus, who flew just close enough to the sun to crash and burn. He discovers an instance where his formula predicts the stcok market successfully and that's when special interest groups unravel his wings. Pi is tragic yet logistically very plausible. It is honest and is a fascinating take on those that aim too high.

Rating of
4/4 

09/19/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

More About the Idea

The movie started off pretty strong but as the character’s madness started to set in, the movie got more random with each passing minute. I did like hearing about the math because most of the explanations about patterns did make sense, but when they tried to fuse the topic with religion, I just didn’t buy it because it’s too implausible (I actually caught my eyes rolling a couple of times). I feel like the director was trying too hard to fit everything together, but instead it all falls flat. The black and white, grainy look didn’t bother me at all. In fact, that’s what I like most about it because it’s stylish in its own way. It might, however, repel most casual viewers because there’s nothing much to look at. To me, the movie isn’t about the images anyway. It’s more about the idea and h...

Rating of
2/4