The Life Aquatic
Joe's Corner
With a great movie, you feel a real sense of satisfaction praising it, because you might get a few more people to see it. With a seriously bad movie, like, oh, nothing comes to mind right now (ALEXANDER), it's fun to rip it apart. Then there's movies like "The Life Aquatic".
By all rights, this should have been a terriffic film, and there are MOMENTS when that's exactly what it is. The cast is pretty much a director's dream... Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Cate Blanchett, Angelica Huston... and it's written by Wes Anderson, he of such gems as "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums". Anderson regular Murray plays Steve Zissou, world-famous oceanographer and modern-day Cousteau, about to go on his latest mission, to find the shark that ate his partner, and kill it. At the same time, he meets his son (WIlson) for the first time in his life, and invites him on the mission for a little belated father/son bonding.
It's very unlikely that anyone with any kind of sense of humor will get through more than five or six consecutive minutes of this film withouth some big laughs, and what's great about them is that they're never over-the-top... Anderson is the king of subtle, dry humor, and he has the perfect actors to get that style across. I particularly enjoyed the obvious fakery of the so-called "documentaries" Zissou and his team film on each voyage, particularly when Murray grabs two guns and makes like a John Woo hero to defeat some alleged pirates.
However, Anderson does have a tendency to go for pathos as his films go on, and while that worked on his earlier movies, it's not so successful this time. The attempt to show us the hidden emotional depths of Steve Zissou and his inner emotional turmoil over the events that develop between him and his son feel just a bit too forced and manipulative: okay, folks, you've had your 90 minutes of fun, now it's time for the Oscar-bait scenes! And Istill insist that to be at its most effective, a comedy shouldn't be much longer than 90 minutes... the longer it goes past that point, the less funny it is, and "The Life Aquatic" is just two minutes short of two hours long. This is Bill Murray, folks, not "The Godfather".
Still, Anderson has yet to make a film without merit, and practically any movie with Bill Murray in the full-fledged lead as he is here has plenty of merit just from that alone. And like I said, there are not shortage of funny scenes. So it's by no means a thumbs down... it's just not the best from any of the folks involved. I can ultimately say that I did enjoy it, and you probably will too (it opens locally December 22), but you might still wish Anderson "better luck next time".
With a great movie, you feel a real sense of satisfaction praising it, because you might get a few more people to see it. With a seriously bad movie, like, oh, nothing comes to mind right now (ALEXANDER), it's fun to rip it apart. Then there's movies like "The Life Aquatic".
By all rights, this should have been a terriffic film, and there are MOMENTS when that's exactly what it is. The cast is pretty much a director's dream... Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Cate Blanchett, Angelica Huston... and it's written by Wes Anderson, he of such gems as "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums". Anderson regular Murray plays Steve Zissou, world-famous oceanographer and modern-day Cousteau, about to go on his latest mission, to find the shark that ate his partner, and kill it. At the same time, he meets his son (WIlson) for the first time in his life, and invites him on the mission for a little belated father/son bonding.
It's very unlikely that anyone with any kind of sense of humor will get through more than five or six consecutive minutes of this film withouth some big laughs, and what's great about them is that they're never over-the-top... Anderson is the king of subtle, dry humor, and he has the perfect actors to get that style across. I particularly enjoyed the obvious fakery of the so-called "documentaries" Zissou and his team film on each voyage, particularly when Murray grabs two guns and makes like a John Woo hero to defeat some alleged pirates.
However, Anderson does have a tendency to go for pathos as his films go on, and while that worked on his earlier movies, it's not so successful this time. The attempt to show us the hidden emotional depths of Steve Zissou and his inner emotional turmoil over the events that develop between him and his son feel just a bit too forced and manipulative: okay, folks, you've had your 90 minutes of fun, now it's time for the Oscar-bait scenes! And Istill insist that to be at its most effective, a comedy shouldn't be much longer than 90 minutes... the longer it goes past that point, the less funny it is, and "The Life Aquatic" is just two minutes short of two hours long. This is Bill Murray, folks, not "The Godfather".
Still, Anderson has yet to make a film without merit, and practically any movie with Bill Murray in the full-fledged lead as he is here has plenty of merit just from that alone. And like I said, there are not shortage of funny scenes. So it's by no means a thumbs down... it's just not the best from any of the folks involved. I can ultimately say that I did enjoy it, and you probably will too (it opens locally December 22), but you might still wish Anderson "better luck next time".
posted by Joe Bunce at
7:49 AM
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