The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) - Another Wonderfully Weird Anderson Creation

A team anyone would want to be a part of

    It takes about 30 seconds into any Wes Anderson movie to realize that it is indeed an Andersen creation. Slow rock music by the kinks or in this case by a well known Portugese artist covering some of David Bowie's most well known hits, along with colourful subtitles describing the setting assures you that is is an Anderson film, and that it will be great. The film starts off at a film festival in France in which Steve Zissou, played by Bill Murray, is debuting his newest video on aquatic life. Zissou seems to be depressed during this showing as it is shown in the video that his "best friend" Esteban is murdered after being attacked by a Jaguar Shark, as named by Zissou. During the question and answer period after the film, Zissou proclaims that on his next voyage he will seek out this shark and kill it out of revenge of Esteban's death. The beauty of this sentiment can be linked to Murray's lack of sincerity throughout the whole film. There really is no evidence that Esteban was his best friend, and it seems that his death may have almost been beneficial to Zissou as it attracts media attention, which is all he really seems to care about. This statement then sets the tone of the film, as his new adventure begins. The movie contains the usual understated and subtle hilarious humor, awkward and only slightly romantic love stories and some surprisingly entertaining action scenes, which is almost uncharacteristic of Andersen. Murray puts in an excellent effort as the lead and is truly a fascinating character. The thing I find the most incredible about the character is that after all he's been through, including multiple divorce and the loss of loved ones, it seems as if he is quite static and fails to learn anything. I won't discuss the plot any further as I suggest that you all rent this movie right away if you've yet to see it. One thing I would like to mention is the incredible performance by Owen Wilson. As you will notice in my future critiques, Owen Wilson is possibly my favorite comedic actor of this generation. I find it incredibly entertaining that pretty much everything he says is hilarious regardless of whether or not there's a punch line, he doesn't even need to change the tone of his voice! Yet, in this movie Wilson shows us that his acting ability goes beyond laughter. In fact, I don't think I actually laughed at one of his lines in his movie. He plays an extremely odd character named Ned Plimpton who claims to be Steve Zissou's illegitimate child. What makes Wilson's character so odd is not only his Kentucky accent and limited speech that tends to make everyone around him feel uncomfortable, but it's also the uncertainty around Ned, or Kingsley as Steve likes to call him, that makes his character so endearing. We don't know where in Kentucky he is from, we don't know if he has any siblings or friends and anything that he presents as factual seems to have a lying stigma around it as well. He claims to be Zissou's son even though Steve shoots blanks and he also says he's a pilot for a company that no one has heard of. Owen Wilson does an incredible job of making this odd character one that we are drawn to and learn more about, even though he is certainly not funny.