Product Description

Internationally famous ocenaographer steve zissou & his crew set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious elusive - possibly nonexistent - jaguar shark that killed zissous partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 05/16/2006 Starring: Bill Murray Cate Blanchett

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3488 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-05-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Portuguese, Tagalog
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Amazon.com
In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, director Wes Anderson takes his familiar stable of actors on a field trip to a fantasy aquarium, complete with stop-motion, candy-striped crabs and rainbow seahorses. And though Anderson does expand his horizons in terms of retro-special effects and a whimsical use of color, fans will otherwise find themselves in well-charted waters. As The Life Aquatic opens, Zissou (Bill Murray), a self-involved, Jacques Cousteau-like filmmaker, has just released a documentary depicting the death of his best friend Esteban, who was eaten by some sort of sea creature--possibly a jaguar shark. Zissou’s troubles also include his waning popularity with the public, and a nemesis (Jeff Goldblum) who hogs up all the grant money. Hope arrives in the form of Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), an amiable Kentuckian who may be Zissou’s son. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for fatherhood, Zissou welcomes Ned--and Ned in turn saves Zissou’s new documentary (in which he seeks revenge on the jaguar shark) in more ways than one.

One of Wes Anderson’s greatest achievements as a director to date has been launching the autumnal melancholy phase of Bill Murray’s career, starting with Rushmore in 1998, and Murray delivers a similarly comedic yet low-key performance here. Unfortunately, Zissou is one of the few characters in this ensemble to achieve multi-dimensionality. Even co-star Wilson doesn’t get to develop Ned much beyond Noble Southerner, and he ends up seeming more like a prop for illustrating Zissou’s emotional development rather than his own man. The Life Aquatic probably won’t be remembered as a great film, but it is still one that no Anderson (or Murray) fan can afford to miss.--Leah Weathersby

From The New Yorker
The latest movie from Wes Anderson, after "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums," marks another bid to swim away from the mainstream. Bill Murray plays Steve Zissou, an old-style explorer of the seas, who could easily be a mad American cousin, twice removed, of Jacques Cousteau. Steve has a tall, peculiar wife (Anjelica Huston) and an even taller and more peculiar rival (Jeff Goldblum). The plot, such as it is, concerns the hunting down of a jaguar shark, which has chewed up one of Steve's associates; at the same time, our hero is coping with the appearance of a young man (Owen Wilson) who claims to be his son. This level of weirdness could, in other hands, appear forced and willful, but Anderson seems at ease with his conceits, allowing his cast-which includes Willem Dafoe and, with a ringing British accent, Cate Blanchett-to relax into the demands of deadpan. Hardly anybody here looks young, and we can only guess at the experiences that have aged them, tested them, and cloaked them in Anderson's brand of sadness. Set against that, we get joyous bursts of David Bowie: "Space Oddity," "Rebel Rebel," and other hits, many of them transposed, naturally enough, into Portuguese. With silly, fetching marine animation sequences by Henry Selick. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Clay Smith, ACCESS HOLLYWOOD
"Bill Murray is a master of comedy .... a modern day Charlie Chaplin!"

Customer Reviews

I love this movie
Loved it , the cast is always a good time....very funny...The ocean scenes are beautiful...and Angelica Houston is exceptionally quirky!

Mock you mentally
A totally wacked out film, and the second Bill Murray flick about a guy who may or may not be coming face to face with the son he may have had with an old flame (see also Dead Flowers). This time, though, he's got a cast of eccentric sidekicks, among them Seu Jorge (from City of God, who spends most of his time singing old David Bowie songs in Portuguese) and Willem Defoe (difficult to recognize here, since he's playing a supporting role, as a cranky German). There's also Bud Cort, fat and balding, as a kidnapped accountant, and Cate Blanchett stunning as a pregnant journalist. Owen Wilson, omnipresent on a Wes Anderson set, is there as Bill Murray's son, he's the weakest part of the film. Witty Woody Allen-esque dialogue and quirky scene changes abound, and the encounter with pirates is pure garbage... but it's nice garbage.

All wet
Jacques Cousteau-type filmmaker Steve Zissou is off to film his search for the jaguar shark that killed his partner. Among the motley crew aboard are his disinterested wife, a pregnant journalist, and a man who may be his son.

Bill Murray plays the title character with an unrelenting poker-face, so dour and expressionless that I couldn't relate to him at all. I kept waiting for some of the silliness that Murray does so well, but Steve remained a one-dimensional character throughout. This type of humor escaped me completely. I thought it was tiresome and might have made a good 30-minute film, but not a full-length film. Cate Blanchett was wasted as the journalist as was Jeff Goldblum as a competing filmmaker. Owen Wilson, playing Steve's possible son, was appealing but couldn't make up for the other lifeless characters and the pointless script.

If the director's odd take on humor isn't enough reason to skip this film, there's the terrible DVD commentary, which was recorded in a busy restaurant and is impossible to listen to. Disappointing.