The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou Movie Review: By Adam Mast, ZBoneMan.com

The Life Aquatic uses all the elements we've come to expect from a Wes Anderson picture - cynicism, sarcasm, irony, eccentricities, a touch of whimsy, and a cold chill. What it doesn’t do however, is tell a cohesive or compelling story.

In this odd tale, Bill Murray is Steve Zissou, a Jacques Cousteau type who travels the world by sea, making films about his discoveries and adventures. His personal life is dysfunctional to say the least. When his partner is attacked by a strange creature he decides to call the Jaguar Shark, Zissou vows to scour the globe until he finds the beast so that he can avenge his good friend’s death. Along for the ride are a quirky cast of shipmates including nitwit Klaus (Played by Willem Dafoe), a pregnant journalist (played by Cate Blanchett), and the son Zissou was never entirely sure he had (played by Owen Wilson). Hot on their trail (sort of) is rival explorer Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum), a man who also happens to be smitten with Zissou’s ex-wife (played by Anjelica Huston).

The Life Aquatic is certainly an American original. I don’t recall ever seeing a movie like this before. But sometimes, being original just isn’t enough. Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums (and to a certain extent, Anderson’s first feature Bottle Rocket) were originals, but they had more of a point to make. The Life Aquatic, by comparison, loses it’s way on more than one occasion.The film is reportedly based on the life of the legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau, but upon viewing it, it will be extremely obvious that a world of liberties have been taken.

Let me talk a bit about what I really liked in the movie. Visually, it’s far and beyond anything Anderson has done in his past pictures. Of course, a substantially bigger budget will allow for such upgrades. In particular, I loved the design of Zissou’s boat. It’s marvelously creative, and one of my favorite sequences in the picture, features a profile shot of the liner. The camera slowly glides from one deck to the next, as we see various crew members going about their business on the boat. I’d love to see The Life Aquatic bag an Art Direction Oscar nomination. It really deserves it.

I also enjoyed the effects work in this picture. There are actual sea creatures shown throughout the movie (killer whales, dolphins etc.), but many of them are the animated creations of the terrific Henry Selick (he directed the wonderful James and the Giant Peach). His sea horses, crabs and various other creatures of the deep, lend a bizarre but fittingly surreal vibe to The Life Aquatic.

The performances, for the most part, are solid. Bill Murray is perfectly dry as Steve Zissou. His line delivery is so perfect, precise, and deadpan, that sometimes, it takes a few seconds to realize that he’s just said something outlandishly funny. Owen Wilson is understated as Texan Ned Plimpton. His droll delivery reminded me a bit of Christopher Guest in Best in Show. Willem Dafoe is fun as the clueless Klaus. A scene in which he slaps an unexpected Ned is amongst the film’s funniest.

Each cast member brings their own quirky sensibility to the film, with the exception of Cate Blanchett who plays it straight, and as an end result, she is perhaps the dullest part of the film. I don’t blame Blanchett. She’s proven time and time again that she is an amazing talent. In The Life Aquatic she just isn’t given much to work with. And her unrealistic and completely unnecessary romance with Wilson’s Ned really bogs the film down.

Ultimately, The Life Aquatic is smug and self consciously odd. It also goes out of it’s way to be anything but politically correct (at one point in the picture, a pregnant woman drinks, and during another, we witness abuse to a three legged dog). With each passing scene, the film feels as if it’s trying too hard to be different. It is, for this reason that the recent (and similar) I Heart Huckabees works in a superior fashion. Like The Life Aquatic, Huckabees is odd and overflowing with various views of that funny thing called life, but it’s also much more consistent and when it was over, I felt like there was a point to it.

The Life Aquatic starts off promising, leading us to believe it will have some sort of a payoff, but it really doesn’t. The final frame of the movie is supposed to suggest that Steve Zissou has learned a little more about himself and those around him, but the movie is so wildly uneven, that it doesn’t really come across.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou has moments of genius, and another terrific performance by legendary funny man Bill Murray, but this ocean of eccentricities would have benefitted from a tighter structure and a little more heart.

Grade: B-

Adam Mast, ZBoneMan.com