Wet wet wet (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (DVD))

Member Name: cswann

Product:	The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (DVD)
Date:	06/01/06 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very clever effects, strange plot - totally different from anything else you'll see

Disadvantages: Boring when it really shouldn't have been

Wes Anderson’s movies are a definite draw for me – you can rely on idiosyncratic movies with idiosyncratic characters, and unusual plots. I’ve really enjoyed “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore”, so went to see “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” as soon as it was released.

…and I was disappointed.

Before I get onto that, though, what’s it about?

Steve Zissou is played by Bill Murray – he’s the central character, an underwater explorer, Jacques Cousteau–style, for anyone who remembers their 60’s TV series.
Zissou has a series called “Life Aquatic” and is filming the latest shots around the Italian coast. His best friend and fellow diver, Esteban, gets eaten by a shark. Seymour Cassel plays the role of Esteban, but as you can guess it’s a short-lived one – he’s dead within 5 minutes of the start of the movie.
From then on the movie presents us with a kind of quest to find the elusive shark shark, presumably to discover more about it, but also to seek some kind of revenge. And don’t think this an action adventure – no, it’s more of a voyage of self discovery for Zissou and his shipmates. That, and a tribute to (or spoof of) the natural history documentary genre.
Zissou himself s a cold fish kind of character, not very good at social interaction, and perhaps not even very good as a leader of his team – and there are certainly elements of comedy, largely because of this.

There were reasons why I should have enjoyed this movie than I did…

It has a great cast.
Bill Murray's a Wes Anderson favourite, and he's perfect in the role here.
Eleanor, Zissou’s wife, is played by Angelica Houston.
Jeff Goldblum plays Alistair Hennessey, her creepy ex-husband, but also a rich rival to Zissou.
Cate Blanchett plays a reporter, and as things are rarely straightforward in Anderson’s world she’s also heavily pregnant.
Owen Wilson plays Ned Plimpton, a young man from Kentucky.
Willem Defoe is a German crew member, and in a completely different role for him – a minor character but important one.

The movie looks great – there are some highly memorable scenes, and some very colourful scenes. Lots of the scenes are very clever, stuffed full of colour and detail. Often, Murray is in the shot, completely still, so we are allowed to notice all the detail around him. I especially liked the scenes featuring the ship itself. The ship is actually an antiquated kind of vessel, and we get to see a cross section of the rooms, into the bowels of the hull – it’s kind of like the DVD extra features, but within the movie.
Similarly, there are some very good moments of animation (the marine animals we see) – al too brief, usually.

The music is great – Brazilian actor and musician Seu Jorge has translated Several David Bowie songs into Portuguese, and does his own acoustic renditions of them (Rebel Rebel, Starman).

So far so good – now it’s time to analyse why I was disappointed by the movie.

First, I was expecting great things, because of the movies by Anderson that I’d seen before, so there was a sense of let-down – probably my own fault, that.

Generally speaking, though, I was bored by “The Life Aquatic” and that is really inexcusable, when you look at the interesting elements of movie. It really should have held my interest, but somehow it didn’t.
I got a sense of lost opportunity, overall.
For example, the team go in search of the shark that killed Esteban. Zissou calls it a “Jaguar shark”, so there’s the thought that it could be a previously unseen species, and this is probably a crucial part of the plot, but to be honest it didn’t seem like it should be, not a huge thing is made about that.

Apart from the look of it, most of the movie left me cold. The acting wasn’t that special, and there it didn’t get me emotional at the times when it should have. It didn’t even seem that funny, when it was probably supposed to me.
All in all – you could say it was trying too hard, and missed a few targets as a result.

Rather wet, in fact.


The DVD has stacks of extras (nine deleted scenes, features, and director’s commentary)
It’s £7.97 from amazon.co.uk, or only £6.99 at blahdvd.com

There is a 2 disc set as well (Criterion edition, NTSC)
Disc 1 is the same as the standard DVD, but Disc 2 features all kinds of goodies - 10 David Bowie tracks performed by Seu Jorge
- interview with composer Mark Mothersbaugh (from the band Devo)
- an Italian TV interview
- behind-the-scenes photos and artwork.
- six featurettes –
The Look Aquatic (on the design of the ship, plus interview with production designer Mark Friedberg).
Creating a Scene,
Aquatic Life (on the animation in the movie) Probably my own favourite portion of the huge selection of extras.
Ned Plimpton (dedicated to Luke Wilson's performance – can be a bit repetitive with other content)
Esteban du Plantier (on Seymour Cassel’s work)
Costumes (on Milena Canonero's costumes)
- making-of featurette, “This Is an Adventure”
- video journal by Matthew Gray Gubler.

This 2 disc set costs slightly more and may not play on some UK players, so I wouldn’t recommend it any more than the standard DVD.

Summary: Promising but disappointing Wes Anderson underwater exploration movie