"The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (Touchstone Pictures)
“The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” is a take off on the life of legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. But this movie never takes off. It just sits there and slowly sinks into oblivion. Even the casting of Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe can’t float this entertainment boat. They use their talent in an attempt to bail out the boredom but within the first ten minutes they are all submerged.
Steve Zissou (Murray) is a documentary filmmaker. He makes films about his life searching out various sea creatures. On one adventure his partner is eaten by a huge shark. Zissou becomes obsessed with hunting down this creature Ahab-like and then destroying it.
The money for his operation is provided by his wife Eleanor (Huston). She is the brains behind the business but she is getting a little tired of Zissou’s egomaniacal ways. When her ex-husband Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) offers her a chance to go to his island home she accepts. This leaves Zissou free to enter into a flirtation with a pregnant reporter (Blanchett) who is doing a story on him.
Zissou has also encountered a young man named Ned (Wilson) who may be his son. Feeling parental he asks Ned to join the latest expedition and Ned accepts. This causes Klaus (Dafoe) to be jealous because he wants to be Zissou’s right hand man.
Murray brings a certain drollness to his role and in a better movie it might work. In this one it just adds insult to injury. You get aggravated with the script and his performance at about the same time. And when you add Wilson’s dumb but charming take on his character, well you know things are going downhill fast.
Most wasted in this film are Blanchett and Huston, two actresses who capture their roles completely but that is of no consequence. Since they are supporting characters in the story they can not alter its sinking destiny.
The movie is rated R for profanity, violence and nudity.
“The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” is written, produced and directed by Wes Anderson. He is the man behind such projects as “The Royal Tennenbaums” and “Rushmore.” Those movies had a certain quirky charm. This one doesn’t. This is just a slimy, waterlogged, moldy movie that might capsize the careers of all who are associated with it.
I scored “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” a submerged 3 out of 10.
