Having avoided the reviews once again I figured out that Wes Anderson must have been the same director for this film as for "The Royal Tenenbaums", and therefore also of "Rushmore" (which I've not seen, yet). As for previous outings for this director the commercial emphasis is on the comedy genre, but in actuality the film exhibits a much broader spectrum of qualities.
The tale is of a Jacques Cousteau like explorer called Steve Zissou, played with much depth by Bill Murray, who begins the film with a film premiere of his latest exploits. The film we see details the tragic, and slightly unbelievable loss of his companion Esteban, also referred to as "the brains behind Team Zissou". So, for the ultimate scientific reason, revenge, Zissou gathers his team together for a mission to track down the mysterious creature who ate his friend.
As we find out Team Zissou is a motley crew of people, consisting of various dysfunctional mariners and technitions, and also including Anjelica Houston, as Steve's wife Eleanor Zissou (also the brains behind Team Zissou), Ned Plimton (by peaceful Owen Wilson) who is 'probably' Steve's son, and a reporter by the name of Jane Winslett-Richardson played by Cate Blanchett. Excellent support is also on offer from Michael Gambon, Jeff Goldblum, and Willem Dafoe - which leaves you wondering how on earth Anderson got hold of all these actors.
The film veers around the main plot like a rudderless ship, with various distractions on route, but this is in keeping with the rest of the style of the film, difficult to pin down, but fun and interesting. In this respect I found "The Life Aquatic" more enjoyable than "The Royal Tenenbaums", which after a second watching I found quite bleak! Some of the visual effects are interesting in "The Life Aquatic", occasionally you get some CG creatures appearing at various places in the film, they are fun and not meant to be very realistic, but I wondered if they pointed to a hallucinatory element to the film. Probably not, but maybe it's a thought.
Overall I found the film very funny indeed, and would certainly watch this at least once more. Other people I knew did not appreciate the film quite as much, but I think this is understandable as having any preconceptions about what the film may or may not be like before seeing the film would be potentially ruinous. One reoccuring theme which possibly seemed like a cop-out to me was the repeated attempts by the characters to bring more deep (ho ho) meaning to the film, whereupon they would inevitably get distracted or just forget what they were saying, and then the film would move on! Apart from that, great, and I loved the spoof of poorly made features.
**** (out of 5)
