[REVIEW] The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

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Huh. I was supposed to love (as in, I was instructed specifically to love) Wes Anderson's -- yes, the other Anderson's -- last movie, The Royal Tenenbaums. I didn't. I was also instructed to love his previous movie, Rushmore. I also didn't.

And yet, nobody told me to love The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.

But you know what?

.
.
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I don't love it either. BUT, I am less disappointed with it than all the other Wes Anderson movies. If Charlie Kaufman screenplays are too clever for their own good, Anderson movies are just too damn... disassociated for their own good.

Everything is VERY creative, and VERY clever, and you just want to keep watching because you never know what goofy, understated crap is going to happen next. It's just, everything seems so... far away... that there is exactly zero emotional impact to anything that happens. If Wes is trying to make any deep, meaningful points about the nature of humanity and love and seahorses or whatever, it's lost on us. US. Lost on me, but also you, because I know how you are.

But the thing is still hard to stop watching once you start. Roger Ebert said it best in his review: "I can't recommend it, but I would not for one second discourage you from seeing it."

Anyway, the movie is about Bill Murray, who had a hit explorer show, like Cousteau, and now nobody gives a crap, and in the last episode of his show his buddy got eaten by some weird sea monster, who now he's set out to kill. Except then his long-lost maybe-son shows up, and then a hot pregnant reporter, and then there's pirates, and then Jeff Goldblum shows up, and then there's a bunch of animated fish which swim around, and then there's a black guy singing David Bowie songs, and...

...ah, who gives a crap.

***.

[me]

The only Anderson movie I ever loved was the first one, the one he co-wrote with one of those actor brothers that are always in his movies. That movie was Bottlerocket.