Esotropiart

Believe it or not, The Life Aquatic is a movie dedicated to Jacques Cousteau, famous oceanographer. What a strange mode of movie to devote to such a seemingly serious and focused life as Cousteau's. Interestingly enough, though most of Cousteau's work dates to before I came into this world, I am very aware of his contribution to the expos? of the ocean depths and undersea life. In fact, you could say I was raised on PBS (public television), where he regularly appeared. To this day I still enjoy sitting down and soaking in a good nature, history, home improvement, or painting TV program. As a child I was fascinated by cultures, geography and animals. Naturally, my parents' subscription to National Geographic and their (my dad's) accumulative behavior was very conducive to these interests. I thrived on the beautiful color photographs found in these magazines and on the TV specials. When most kids would be bored out of their minds, my imagination soared with such astounding inspiration as found in God's beautiful creation and a talented photographer's ability to capture it.

It is always fun to see a healthy list of familiar faces thrown together in a movie, and The Life Aquatic is no disappointment in this department. Along the lines of other movies by the same director (Wes Anderson), numerous cast spots are filled with actors and actresses of recognizable name and face. Bill Murray plays the lead role and easily the most compelling character, Steve Zissou, gun slinging oceanographer extraordinaire. It's always at least a small thrill to see how a group of top-notch actors interact in the same world. Most movies have a primary face to remember, with several "up and coming" or second rate supporting stars to fill space (and save money). It's like martial arts movies: There is always a primary hero who is someone like Jackie Chan or Jet Li. The rest of the actors are comparatively dull (unless you watch enough movies and get familiar with even the secondary artists). I'm waiting for a movie that stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li. You will see just about every other combination of famous Chinese martial artists on screen besides these two. What's the deal? Are they enemies? Surely they must realize they could rake in the dough if they joined and made a movie together, and it would be a dream come true for all of us fans!

The Life Aquatic starts out as perhaps the dullest and slowest movie I have ever seen in my entire life. In fact, I tried to watch it late last night and simply couldn't finish it because it seemed to be going nowhere. I gave it a second chance this evening, and it turned out to be slightly better than I thought.

The movie presents a very strange scenario from the beginning. Steve Zissou is half scientist/biologist and half film-maker. You can see him doctoring up his "documentaries" and making them more into an adventure series. At first you aren't sure if his mentor and partner is killed by a shark near the beginning of the film, or if his death was staged as part of the film. It soon becomes apparent that this event did indeed happen, and in the end the killer "Jaguar Shark" is finally found by the team. Of course it ends up being as big as a blue whale and has glowing orbs all over its body. The revelation of this absurd beast is the perfect ending to this quirky movie.

I'm having a hard time trying to think of a category for this movie. It's not really a comedy in my estimation because it has very few genuinely hilarious moments. It is perhaps best described as artsy, full of subtle and sophisticated humor that gets lost in clouds of confusion and monotony. I don't think I'm too shallow to catch the humorous suggestions; I just thought they were too weak. Perhaps the funniest attribute of the movie for me was the fact that all the sea creatures represented in the film were clearly fake (computer-generated). Even the animals that could have been filmed were fake. This phenomemon added a bit of oddity and interest to the plot. Here you are, following conversations between straight-faced characters when all-of-a-sudden a boy hands Steve Zissou a rainbow-colored seahorse. It's amusing because Bill Murray never shows the least bit of surprise at these fabricated creatures. He immediately knows their names and seems to have seen them a million times over. Perhaps this is a reference to Jacques Cousteau's behavior; my memories don't serve me that well.

I am between either accepting The Life Aquatic as an artistic and profoundly groundbreaking movie or declaring it a complete waste of time. I think there were enough entertaining elements, mostly unbelievable, to keep my interest through to the end. The primary fault is perhaps the weak, lackluster humor and extremely slow excitement buildup. I tend to enjoy hyperbole (extreme exaggeration), especially when it is accepted and not reacted to as something out of the ordinary. A good example of this scenario in the film is when the Zissou crew takes off after a group of pirates who have kidnapped two of the Zissou team. In the heat of the moment, Bill Murray's character breaks face and suddenly becomes Rambo: invincible and with infinite bullets. He kills off virtually the entire group of bandits single-handedly, without himself sustaining a single wound. No one seems to be surprised that this mostly mild-mannered, elderly man is able to pull it off.