 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
| The Life Aquatic
Directed By: Wes Anderson Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
|
|
| Internationally famous oceanographer Steve Zissou and his crew--Team Zissou--set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious, elusive, possibly non-existant Jaguar Shark that killed Zissou's partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. They are joined on their voyage by a young airline co-pilot who may or may not be Zissou's son, a beautiful journalist assigned to write a profile of Zissou, and Zissou's estranged wife and co-producer, Eleanor. They face overwhelming complications including pirates, kidnapping, and bankruptcy. [TRAILER] Something’s missing from “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” an essential piece of the puzzle that leaves this comedy feeling more odd and disjointed than endearingly wacky. Director Wes Anderson has established a very devoted fan base thanks to the droll cynicism and irony that boiled over in 1998’s “Rushmore” and 2001’s “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Those were movies of acquired taste, about the quirkiness of a brilliant, but awkward teenager, as well as a heartless father and his dysfunctional family, and their attempts to better themselves by film’s end. They represent the high standard that Anderson has set for himself, and they have led to a wave of imitators, such as “Napolean Dynamite,” which think by being absurd and random, they are mimicking Anderson’s style. But these replicas forget that Anderson seems to really love his characters, see their quirks as assets rather than liabilities, and always asks the viewer not to laugh at them as people, but at their sometimes awkward interactions with the real world. What dooms “Life Aquatic” from the start is that Anderson has changed an essential part of the formula. Whereas in “Rushmore” and “Tenenbaums,” these were weird characters in a realistic world, “Aquatic” is entirely a world of make believe, without any realistic backbone to serve as a point of contrast. It is the equivalent of a two-man comedy routine without a straight man, which may initially be funnier, but ultimately results in a far less humorous scramble between comedians trying to one-up each other. The setup is this: Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) is the ringleader for a group of oceanographic explorers, whose adventures are recorded and released as popular films, earning Zissou and company the status of celebrity. Among his key associates are Eleanor (Anjelica Huston), his wealthy wife, Klaus (Willem Dafoe), Zissou’s foreign, right-hand man, and, as the movie gets underway, Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), who claims to be Zissou’s long-lost son. Inside this fictional world of science and celebrity, Zissou competes against Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum), his elitist competitor at sea, as well as pirates who continue to wreak havoc on the high seas. “Life Aquatic” is the story of Plimpton’s entry into the Zissou universe, how it shakes up the balance of power among Zissou’s crew, and about their errand of revenge in hunting down a shark that ate Zissou’s friend on a previous mission. But while Anderson likely thinks he’s hitting comedy gold in placing the cocky, ambivalent Bill Murray at sea, pitted against the proper Owen Wilson and the jealous Willem Dafoe, they never become more than one-dimensional pawns in a transparent comedy skit. The film repeatedly digresses, through the terrible production values of Zissou’s films, the group’s inherent lack of intelligence, and their immature clashes of egos, to remind the audience that this entire premise, and Zissou’s universe of fabricated reality, are the real jokes to notice. But what Anderson doesn’t realize is we have no counterpoint to Murray’s perfectly sarcastic and sardonic one-liners or his absurd mission. Unlike his other films, where comedy existed side-by-side with drama, where his quirky world in “Tenenbaums” could even develop into a story about suicide, “Zissou” only has one note that it hits time and again until its misguided third act, when the father-son subplot and the final shark confrontation reveal just how uninvolving this “Life Aquatic” really is. It’s a silly comedy with some real laughs, I’ll give it that, but it’s hardly the genre-bending, explosive, unpredictable work we’re used to from Anderson. I’m sure this world of the absurd was easier for him to write, and that his “Aquatic” imagination ran rampant with limitless possibilities. But easier, as always, is far less interesting.
Check out Reviews, Commentary, and More at Zertinet.com |
LINKS
TO REVIEWS |
| Movies
@ Zertinet | Oscars @ Zertinet
| Main Site Best Viewed
at 800 X 600 or greater |
|
