Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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94 of 102 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderfully Strange - Beautiful Colors - What Is Real?, June 30, 2005
I think if everyone would stop referring to the Wes Anderson movies as comedies we would all be better off. "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" is not about making the audience laugh. Yes, there are times you will laugh, but there are also times you will cringe, and there are other moments for just about everything else. What kind of movie is it? It really isn't something that can be given a single label. Yes, there are all kinds of jokes, but aren't they in the service of something more than simple laughs? Hearing David Bowie songs in Portuguese with an acoustic guitar is not only funny, it is kind of beautiful.
A simple joke is the name of Zissou's ship. The Belefonte is clearly a play on Cousteau's Calypso as are the crew's red knit caps. However, some of the humor is quite tough. Think of the scene with Jeff Goldblum's Alistair Hennessy playing cards with his pirate captors as Steve Zissou comes in the room. What follows is funny, but grim at the same time. Then there is the weird way the inside of the boat is portrayed in a cutaway set that looks fake and is meant to look fake. Notice that the science room is the smallest room on this research vessel. The Sauna is much bigger and all the rooms given over to film production constitute most of the ship.
This movie has a lot of fun with the artificial in documentaries and films. Even the scenes of creatures of the sea are often CGI creations that don't even try to look real. Heck, even the colors in the Zissou documentaries are supersaturated and look like they were done in different colors of ink rather than the ocean. How real is life when you are more concerned about getting everything shot with the right sound rather than living it? And how legitimate can a documentary be when it is cobbled together from a lot of staged shots and hosted by someone who really doesn't have a clue about the science behind what is being filmed?
All of the lead actors are terrific and Bill Murray leads the way as the weary and fading Steve Zissou. Everyone involved with Zissou has their own downward arc. Even the equipment is old and barely works. Tired helicopters are dangerous things.
Does the movie work? Maybe not. However, I find so much to watch and enjoy in each scene - even just the actions of the non-speaking characters - that I really enjoyed this movie. If you want to see something strangely beautiful, that plays with all kinds of notions of what is real and what is fake and has a lot of fun along the way, this might be something you would enjoy, although it is not for children.
I guess the kind of send up it is, even of Moby Dick, can be captured by then end title that expresses "gratitude to the Jacques Cousteau Society even though they had nothing to do with the making of the film." I like this kind of thing. Maybe you do to.
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127 of 156 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Zissou Life, January 9, 2005
Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) is sowing some of his more artificial and creative wild oats in his latest, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." I mean stop-motion clay animated sea horses and other assorted sea creatures? As well as a third wall removed set of Zissou's (Bill Murray) ship in which Anderson films the scenes there as if they were acts in a stage play?
It's strange, weird...and I've got to admit pretty wonderful.
Bill Murray plays Steve Zissou: a Jacques Cousteau sort of Sea Adventurer who, at the film's beginning, is down on his luck and has just lost a best friend to a so-called Jaguar Shark. One of the film's funniest scenes comes near the beginning when Zissou, in a conference swears to get even with the shark by finding and murdering it to avenge the death of his friend.
Owen Wilson is also on hand as Ned: a man who claims to be Zissou's son and once again we have this recurring theme in Anderson's work about lost, then regained fathers so prevalent in "The Royal Tenenbaums."
With a film so full of artifice, snotty-yet-funny wit and the king and queen of deadpan, Murray and Angelica Huston one would think that all of "The Aquatic Life" would be without an emotional life. But I found this film to have a very deep well of emotion if you are willing to wash down your emotion with large gulps of remorse and wry humor.
"The Life Aquatic" is a veritable beggar's banquet for the eyes and the ears (a Brazilian troubadour sings David Bowie songs throughout the film to underscore the drama) and though you sometimes think the whole ship is going to go over the edge artistically...it never does. It just sails along; the course set for parts unknown and uncharted.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious, Bizarre, Not To Be Taken Seriously, & Definitely Not A Film For Everyone!, July 28, 2005
Truth be told...this is NOT a film for everyone - definitely not a mainstream movie. I personally enjoy writer-director Wes Anderson's somewhat eccentric, (bizarre?), style. However, if you watched "Rushmore" and/or "The Royal Tenenbaums" and did not crack a smile, or thought about turning off the DVD player, you should stop reading here. "The Life Aquatic" is not for you. See, how helpful I have been? Now you don't need to read the entire review.
For those of you who have chosen to remain with me, Bill Murray is at his best here - wry, witty, wacky, clever, typically dead pan, totally self-absorbed, and once in a while, comedically tragic...or morosely sentimental! Think of this as a mega-fish story, with Murray as Steve Zissou, a Jacques Cousteau kinda guy. He, just like Cousteau, is an internationally famous oceanographer, who makes underwater documentaries, and wears a Cousteau-like knitted red cap - but Steve's has a pom-pom on top of his. Unlike Cousteau, however, Steve's a pothead. The ship resembles Cousteau's famous state of the art Calypso - but here it is named the Belafonte. Get it? Belafonte used to sing calypso. Hehehe. Well, that's the kind of humor you'll find with Team Zissou. I think it's hilarious...but that's me and this is just a warning. Anyway, Captain Zissou, (whose insignia looks like the Mark of Zorro), and his crew are filming a documentary about "The Life Aquatic." During the film's 1st stage, Part 1, Zissou's partner and close friend Esteban, is devoured by a Great Jaguar Shark, like Jonah and the whale. However, I think the Jaguar Shark, which makes "Jaw's" monster Great White look like a guppy, does a bit more crunching and munching. There's blood in the water! In other words, Esteban is not swallowed whole! Steve takes an emotional turn for the worse after the death, and his Captain Ahab side emerges, as he goes in quest of vengeance, to reap havoc upon the great leviathan.
Underneath all the fame and misfortune, Steve is an insecure, middle-age man in the midst of a long-term mid-life crisis. He feels like a wash-out, his best years behind him. However, he does manage to recover enough self-esteem to hit on pregnant, unmarried journalist Jane Winslett-Richardson, (Cate Blanchett), who is writing a magazine feature about the expedition. When Steve is approached on the eve of the voyage by Ned Plimpton, (Owen Wilson), an intelligent young Southern gentleman and an airplane pilot for Kentucky Airlines, he is forced to confront his past. Ned may be his son, a love child. Zissou gives the young man a red cap and a Speedo, like the rest of the crew, and invites him to be his new assistant. He also renames him Kingsley (Ned) Zissou and buys him embossed stationery with his new moniker.
Other wild and crazy team members are the faithful, and ever so strange, German assistant Klaus, (Willem Dafoe), Jeff Goldblum as Steve's arch rival, nemesis, and much better financed competitor, Hennessey, (who wears an "I'm A Pepper" T-shirt), Michael Gambon is the supercilious financier Drakoulias, and Bud Cort plays the amiable, mild-mannered bond company rep, called the "Bond Stooge," who fortunately happens to speak Tagalog. I say fortunately because they are boarded at one point by vicious Philippine pirates. So add some Tom Clancy action, an extreme and perverse version, along with Moby Dick, the Bill Murray/Jacques Cousteau shtick, and director Wes Anderson's shenanigans - are you getting the picture?
The Zissou crew of mongrel miscreants returns to the water once again to film Part 2. Other team members are an ex bus driver, a former substitute teacher, a topless script girl, and various summer interns who don't get paid, but do get college credits for mixing Steve's Camparis on the rocks and acting as all around gofers. Eleanor, (Anjelica Huston), is Mrs. Zissou number 2 or 3. She comes from a wealthy family, who is frequently called upon to foot the bill for the underwater ventures. Eleanor thinks she'll sit out the hunt for Moby shark. She takes off for their private island, abandoning her post as the chief logistics officer. This stresses everyone, except Mrs. Zissou. Eleanor is considered the brains behind Zissou and Co..
There are some wonderful details in the film, especially when the crew submerges in their updated WWII submarine. The fanciful, sometimes psychedelic sea creatures are created by Henry Selick. There are rhinestone bluefish, a crayoned coat of many colored seahorse, beautifully striped sugar crabs, and the most marvelous Jaguar Shark. As I mentioned, we are also treated to a pirate attack, (where Steve saves the day), a hostage rescue, (where Steve saves the day), a mutiny, (during which Steve grovels for love and sympathy), a romance, (where Steve's a loser), death and violence...none of which is to be taken seriously. Seriously. Well, maybe there are one or two solemn moments. Otherwise, "The Life Acuatic" is a lark. And perhaps, I'm warped.
JANA
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