Living the Life Aquatic

Danny's Christmas Movie Review Spectacular:

THE LIFE AQUATIC

Celebrated Jewz-go-to-the-movies Day (aka Christmas) by seeing The Life Aquatic yesterday with my brother. I had been really looking forward to this movie for a while, because for one it was Wes Anderson's next movie (he who made Rushmore and The Royal Tannenbaums), and also because it was Bill Murray's next big project after Lost in Translation, which I loved (not counting Garfield ...). Plus I've always liked the subject of ocean exploration, so this just seemed like it'd be a cool, funny, quirky movie. Going in though, I was surprised to see many less than wonderful reviews, so my enthusiasm went down considerably before the last few days. But I should have known that a cast this good and a director who has yet to deliver a clunker wouldn't let me down. This movie was great, and I'd go so far as to say it's one of the best of the year, and also possibly my favorite Wes Anderson movie thus far (I think I liked it slightly more than Tannenbaums which I likes slightly more than Rushmore - have yet to see Bottle Rocket ...). Yep, I was definitely glad we saw this as our Christmas movie. Basically, the film deals with the oceanic explorer / adventurer / documentary film-maker Steve Zissou, basically Jeaque Cousteau meets Buckaroo Banzai (more on THAT connection later). In the course of the movie's twisting and constantly surprising plot, Zissou meets a man who may or may not be his son (Owen Wilson), even as he struggles to win back his wife (Angelica Houston). In the process, he is trying to make one last great movie, after a long career of strange, fantastical, undersea documentaries. Accompanied by Team Zissou, led by the loyal first mate (played hilariously by William Dafoe) and a pregnant reporter (a great turn by Cate Blanchette), the aging, depressed, and eccentric Steve seeks to document his quest to find and kill the elusive "jaguar shark," the beast that, on his last adventure, killed a member of his Team. The characters and themes of this film are great - well fleshed out, eccentric, and hilarious. Jeff Goldblum is gold as Zissou's charismatic rival oceanagrapher, Hennesy (leader of Operation Hennessy). Murray himself, though playing a similar world-wearied, gloomy charcter trying to relive past glories, as in Lost in Translation, is great. Visually, the film has that patented Wes Anderson quirkiness, which is all the more suitable given the aquatic backdrop. The movie feels like an amalgam of an eccentric foreign film, a pop-up storybook, a pulp adventure, and a farcical comedy. But it all works. I laughed throughout the whole movie at the absurdities and funny dialogue, but also was left thinking about the themes of family, aging, loyalty and discovery that Wes Anderson cleverly weaves throughout the movie. I also loved the ending here, which turns from tragic to hopeful in a masterful turn of events. You have also gotta love the closing credit sequence, which I immediately recognized (and was probably the only one in the theater to do so) as being directly lifted from the cult classic 1980's B-movie adventure Buckaroo Banzai, a terrible yet strangely awesome flick which I recently happened to view on DVD. The one scene that stuck with me from that movie was the kick-ass end credits scene, where Buckaroo and his team of adventurers walks towards the camera, sequentially joined by more and more people as this really awesome music plays in the background. Such a great scene in what is a very bewildering movie. But while it was totally random in Buckaroo Banzai, the same exact sequence is used in The Life Aquatic, except here it makes perfect sense and is the PERFECT ending to the movie (see the movie and you'll understand why). It's like Wes Anderson saw Buckaroo Banzai, realized (as I and no doubt others did) how sweet that ending scene was, but realized that it could be even better if it was actually placed in a context that made sense story-wise and thematically. Awesome. There's so many more little cool details in this movie that can be talked about. The whimsical, surrealistic layout of Zissou's anachronistic sea-faring vessel. The recurring joke about unpaid interns that was particularly resonant with this former unpaid intern. The cool, stop-motion effects that make the strange, unique looking sea-life all the more strange and awesomely surreal. The random PIRATE ATTACK and the ensuing gunfight. The fact that Zissou has his own island. And his own hot-air balloon. So don't believe what the critics said - go check out Wes Anderson's best movie yet - one that you won't soon forget.

My grade: A