It’s been a good year for books-turned-into-movies. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower” was simply beautiful, “Cloud Atlas” was one of the year’s best movies and “The Hunger Games”, a terrible film in quality, made more than $686 million worldwide. The rest of 2012 hopes to continue that tradition, with “Killing Them Softly” adapting the 1974 novel “Cogan’s Trade”  and of course “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” starting a trilogy of movies that’ll adapt the “Lord of the Rings” prequel “The Hobbit”.

The biggest question mark for the year may have been “Life of Pi”.  Similar to “Cloud Atlas”, “Life of Pi” is an adaptation of a famous book that many thought was unfilmable. To boot, both have a huge visual palette and a sizable ideas at the center of their stories. So did we wind up with a delicious slice of “Life of Pi”?

Piscine “Pi” Molitor Patel (played in his teens by Suraj Sharma and as an adult by Irfan Khan) finds himself shipwrecked out at sea, with nothing to his name but a boat, some animals from his families zoo and a small amount of supplies. Pi soon must make peace with a tiger stowaway named Richard Parker, survive on the open sea and in the end discover what he truly believes in.

One thing the previews don’t tell you, but the book obviously does, is that there is a massive religious subtext to the movie. As a child, Pi discovers various religions and finds both flaws and genius in all of them.  To some it was thought-provoking, but felt tacked on at various points,  especially once he gets out on the ocean as it begins to feel like an afterthought to all the awesome set pieces being seen.

The visuals in this movie are phenomenal, although some scenes with Richard Parker were blatantly CGI. The gorgeous settings, though, are worth the price of admission alone. The whole film feels like a massive moving painting and it’s hard not to be swept away by the power of it’s beauty.

3D has had an interesting year, with people finally accepting it (in some cases begrudgingly) as a part of the 21st century moviegoing experience. “Life of Pi” reinforces the idea of 3D done right, as it’s impossible for me to think of seeing this movie any other way but in the third dimension. Using it to envelop you in Pi’s life-changing adventure, director Ang Lee even changes the screen size to suit the 3D; for instance, a scene where a flock of flying fish come zooming towards Pi and Richard Parker is much wider in screen ration that the rest of the movie so that the flying fish literally pop off the screen. While it can be hard to describe satisfactorily, it’s a wonder to see on the big screen and makes “Life of Pi” worth paying the extra charge.

Compliments must also go out to director Ang Lee and screenwriter David Magee for making the film brilliantly paced and always interesting to watch. A movie like this, featuring talking characters for only 80 percent of the time, must have been difficult to make fascinating, but they’ve easily succeeded. Plus, they made me really care for Richard Parker; I haven’t had such emotional connection to a tiger since Calvin And Hobbes.

“Life of Pi” is a different kind of movie, one that has beauty, 3D and religious discussions as it’s central themes. All very different, but all comes together well in this movie. While it might not be for everyone, “Life of Pi” is a fantastic slice of filmmaking that will leave you thinking about it for days.