The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is your typical Wes Anderson film. It is a funny and original comedy from the man that brought you Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. The screenplay for this film is brilliant and should deserve much more praise than it is receiving from critics. The plot centers around a 52-year old oceanographer named Steve Zissou who is searching for the infamous "Jaguar Shark or whatever it is" that ate his best friend and fellow oceanographer Esteban. The only scientific purpose he has to finding this shark is cold blooded revenge. Sounds like your typical revenge story, right? Wrong! This film is not about that at all. It is about how one man's life has affected all of the other people surrounding him. The whole film centers around Steve's relationship with his son, Ned and even has them fighting over a reporter doing a story on Steve named Jane. She is pregnant and doesn't like to curse in fear that her child may garner a bad influence from it. Throughout the course of the film, Steve attempts to get to know his son all while attempting to find the "Jaguar Shark or whatever it is". Wes Anderson has created a sophisticated comedy in which the characters are extremely developed and interesting. Bill Murray gives one of the best performances of the year as Steve Zissou and critics are underscoring the weight of his acting. He gives Zissou so much depth and personality that whatever he does on screen is funny. The movie works because Murray steers the character in the right direction. He is a lazy, pot-smoking, potty-mouth oceanographer who steals credit from other people. He is the worst guy to hang around with because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing or maybe he just doesn't care. He is so laid back that if you attempt to have any relationship with him, it goes sour. The only relationship that works with him is the one that he has with Ned. Steve doesn't discover that until the very end of the film when he decides to be the father to Jane's son, which is what Ned would have been had he survived. Bill Murray gives subtlety to his character and that is what makes his performance and the entire film amazingly good. There are also terrific supporting performances in the film from an all-star cast manned by Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Angelica Huston, Jeff Goldblum and the magnificent Willem Dafoe as Klaus, the German cameraman who steals the show in this film. Dafoe is perfect as Klaus and he is perhaps the funniest character in the entire film. The choice of music is brilliant and carefully chosen as it is in every Wes Anderson picture. The underwater world is vivid and highly imaginative as Anderson chose to have all the creatures appear animated. It gives the film a type of Burtonesque quality and a certain creepiness and dark edge to it. However, it is still amazing to look at. The action sequences with the Pirates are sophisticated and hilarious and it shows the genius of the script. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is one of the best films of the year and Bill Murray even gives a better performance than the one he gave in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. Those of you who are fans of Wes Anderson will not be disappointed.
Lenny's Grade: A-
Lenny's Grade: A-