Movie Reviews

Director Wes Anderson really loves his characters, despite their many oddball quirks and flaws. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is Anderson's latest character-driven oddity, following Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums.

The film has its moments. Bill Murray is really entertaining as Steve Zissou, a washed-up Jacques Cousteau-type documentary filmmaker whose recent films have tanked, and whose former partner was eaten by the mysterious (and maybe even non-existent?) 'jaguar shark' on their previous excursion. Zissou's next mission involves seeking vengeance on the jaguar shark, and he's convinced that a hit documentary can be formulated at the same time. Adding a severe complication to the whole thing is the sudden appearance of a man named Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), who claims to be Zissou's son.

I think the main problem with The Life Aquatic is that Anderson is so caught up in these characters that there was little thought put into the story. So, that basically leaves a 'character film', which is a genre that can be really great (Rushmore, for example), but you have to have really interesting characters to be a good character film. Zissou, Plimpton, and the others in The Life Aquatic are quirky and sometimes funny, but overall they're a drab and somewhat depressing bunch.

I'm really starting to like Bill Murray in his dramatic (or, semi-dramatic) roles, but this movie needed more than a great lead to make up for its other shortcomings.