Verdict: Sometimes
sinks, but mostly goes along swimmingly.
By ELEANOR RINGEL
GILLESPIE
Cox News Service
I
tend to dislike any director routinely described as "idiosyncratic"
-- I fully expected "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"
to be dead in the water.
But
it's not. Neither as smug as "Rushmore" nor as disjointed
as the likable "The Royal Tenenbaums," "The
Life Aquatic" is an often clever film with some genuine
laughs and a playful streak.
Bill
Murray stars in this fish story about a past-his-prime Jacques
Cousteau-ish figure named Steve Zissou, whose partner was
eaten by a "jaguar" shark on their last documentary
jaunt under the sea, "The Life Aquatic, Part 1."
Turning Captain Ahab-ish, Zissou vows to hunt down the nasty
man-eater in "The Life Aquatic, Part 2."
So
it's back in the water for the members of Team Zissou, who
wear identical red caps and Speedos. A suitably regal Angelica
Huston plays Steve's wife, Eleanor, inevitably dubbed "the
brains of the operation." Willem Dafoe is the ship's
engineer, a loyal and emotional German who loves short shorts.
Seu Jorge provides entertainment aboard, covering David Bowie
songs with a bossa nova beat (a joke that soon wears thin).
And, of course, there are the usual nameless interns who do
grunt work for a good grade.
New
on board are a pregnant reporter, Jane (Cate Blanchett), who's
doing a cover story on Zissou, and a airplane pilot from Kentucky,
Ned (Owen Wilson), who may or may not be Zissou's long-lost
son from a long-ago one-night-stand.
Anderson
has a sharp eye for oddly amusing details. Zissou's boat is
the Belafonte (Cousteau's was the Calypso). His smarmy arch-rival,
a smarmy Jeff Goldblum, wears an "I'm a Pepper"
T-shirt. Team Zissou sits around watching their old documentaries
as if they were old home movies (which, in a sense, they are).
The
fanciful animated sea creatures by Henry Selick ("The
Nightmare Before Christmas") include a colorful "crayon"
seahorse and a "rhinestone" bluefish that's literally
studded with rhinestones. They add a welcome whimsical touch
to a movie that's often frozen in irony.
However,
does a bloody pirate attack, complete with machetes and machine
guns, really belong in the same movie with Little-Nemo-striped
sugar crabs?
Another
problem is the rivalry that develops between Zissou and Ned
over Jane. It's too similar to the sexual dynamics between
father-son figures in "Rushmore" (and it didn't
work there either).
What
does work is the marvelous cast who help us past the film's
hermetically sealed smirk. Murray is wonderfully dyspeptic
and deadpan as an old sea salt whose career is slowly drowning.
Wilson sports a Colonel Sanders tie and courtly manner that
suggests he could be for Ashley Wilkes' great-great-great-grandson.
Dafoe is a walking sight gag in his very short short shorts.
Blanchett has lots of fun clowning around with the guys, while
Huston makes imperiousness a great running joke.
The
pleasure of their company keeps "The Life Aquatic"
afloat. By the end, you may find yourself wishing you had
your own Zissou red cap and Speedo.
