Bill Murray delivered one of the best performances of his outstanding career in "Lost in Translation" and I was primed for a reputedly even stronger one in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." Instead I found a strong cast in a muddled story that reflects director Wes Anderson's indecision as to whether the film was to be a comedy, a fantasy or a serious look at relationships.
Murray as deep sea explorer Steve Zissou is nearing the end of his long-running global, big celebrity popularity as a faux Cousteau. And there are plenty of references, verbal and physical, to the late, great scientist. There's a Moby Dick element, off center really, to the story as Zissou is bankrolled to find a near mythical shark that devoured his long-time partner and closest friend. "Revenge" is Zissou's one word explanation and justification for hunting down and killing a sea creature. Not PC, of course.
Oh, and Zissou is also a Bob Ballard-type employing technology to search the ocean depths, here a motley mishmash of put-together-in-a-hurry tools. His ship's shop is a caricature rather than a clever send-up of the dependence on advances in extreme ocean-exploring technology that frequently highlight documentaries shown over and over again on cable.
Anjelica Huston is fine as Zissou's still suffering but relentlessly supportive ex-wife. Owen Wilson as Zissou's possibly own son, the product of a long-ago liaison, is an act that straddles the extended adolescent romantic and the second banana buffoon. An actually very pregnant Cate Blanchett is a reporter running away from a bad situation as a married man's girlfriend. She's confused as well she should be. What is she doing with this madcap outfit? Blanchett gives her role her customary all (could she ever do less?) but she's wasted here.
William Dafoe is first-mate, a funny but capable chap who hungers for Zissou's approval. He's funny but his interaction with both Murray and Wilson smacks mainly of a sitcom shtick.
The romantic relationships here aren't interesting or even marginally funny, they're tedious.
Murray has the ability unsurpassed by any other actor to project a knowing weariness at the vicissitudes of life, the central emotional outpouring that made "Lost in Translation" shine. Here the weariness seems to be due to having to deal with rapidly shifting tempi that reflect a confusing and, ultimately, unsatisfying tale.
There are funny moments in "The Life Aquatic..." but the whole never equals the value of its too many discrete parts. Ultimately one word describes the film: camp.
And finally in the end titles, the producer must have belatedly been informed that there's a real Steve Zissou who is acknowledged as a New York lawyer specializing in "complex litigation." Actually he practices criminal law in Queens, New York where there are lots of those cases, few of them complex. But it's never admitted that a Steve Zissou, deceased, a devoted Cousteau protégé, remains a stridently debated character in the annals and journals of ichthyology because of his early Sixties claim to have discovered the upstate New York spawning ground of the gefilte fish.
Murray can do so much better and I hope he will soon.
7/10
Murray as deep sea explorer Steve Zissou is nearing the end of his long-running global, big celebrity popularity as a faux Cousteau. And there are plenty of references, verbal and physical, to the late, great scientist. There's a Moby Dick element, off center really, to the story as Zissou is bankrolled to find a near mythical shark that devoured his long-time partner and closest friend. "Revenge" is Zissou's one word explanation and justification for hunting down and killing a sea creature. Not PC, of course.
Oh, and Zissou is also a Bob Ballard-type employing technology to search the ocean depths, here a motley mishmash of put-together-in-a-hurry tools. His ship's shop is a caricature rather than a clever send-up of the dependence on advances in extreme ocean-exploring technology that frequently highlight documentaries shown over and over again on cable.
Anjelica Huston is fine as Zissou's still suffering but relentlessly supportive ex-wife. Owen Wilson as Zissou's possibly own son, the product of a long-ago liaison, is an act that straddles the extended adolescent romantic and the second banana buffoon. An actually very pregnant Cate Blanchett is a reporter running away from a bad situation as a married man's girlfriend. She's confused as well she should be. What is she doing with this madcap outfit? Blanchett gives her role her customary all (could she ever do less?) but she's wasted here.
William Dafoe is first-mate, a funny but capable chap who hungers for Zissou's approval. He's funny but his interaction with both Murray and Wilson smacks mainly of a sitcom shtick.
The romantic relationships here aren't interesting or even marginally funny, they're tedious.
Murray has the ability unsurpassed by any other actor to project a knowing weariness at the vicissitudes of life, the central emotional outpouring that made "Lost in Translation" shine. Here the weariness seems to be due to having to deal with rapidly shifting tempi that reflect a confusing and, ultimately, unsatisfying tale.
There are funny moments in "The Life Aquatic..." but the whole never equals the value of its too many discrete parts. Ultimately one word describes the film: camp.
And finally in the end titles, the producer must have belatedly been informed that there's a real Steve Zissou who is acknowledged as a New York lawyer specializing in "complex litigation." Actually he practices criminal law in Queens, New York where there are lots of those cases, few of them complex. But it's never admitted that a Steve Zissou, deceased, a devoted Cousteau protégé, remains a stridently debated character in the annals and journals of ichthyology because of his early Sixties claim to have discovered the upstate New York spawning ground of the gefilte fish.
Murray can do so much better and I hope he will soon.
7/10