The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou2004
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Much like the titular oceanographer, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou's overt irony may come off as smug and artificial -- but for fans of Wes Anderson's unique brand of whimsy it might be worth the dive.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Photos
Movie Info
Watch it now
Cast
as Steve Zissou
as Ned Plimpton
as Jane Winslett-Richardson
as Eleanor Zissou
as Klaus Daimler
as Alistair Hennessey
as Oseary Drakoulias
as Vladimir Wolodarsky
as Bill Ubell
as Pele dos Santos
as Anne-Marie Sakowitz
as Vikram Ray
as Bobby Ogata
as Renzo Pietro
as Esteban du Plantier
as Intern #1
News & Interviews for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Critic Reviews for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
All Critics (225) | Top Critics (63) | Fresh (127) | Rotten (98) | DVD (22)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is so knowing and so arch: the first part striving for a faux-grandiosity that the second part tries to undercut by its pseudo-geekiness... but ends up being plain annoying.
How much of this will work for you depends on your appetite for the picturesquely dysfunctional.
It is such a brilliant idea, and everything looks so great, especially the way the film is constructed on Cousteau-esque lines, with the calm deliberation of a nature documentary from a more innocent age.
Orson Welles said a film studio was the best train-set a boy could have, but The Life Aquatic is something else: Anderson uses the sound stages of Cinecittá like a kid playing with toy boats in the bath. He makes one hell of a splash.
A lovely, slightly wistful, tragicomedy.
Like the jaguar shark, The Life Aquatic is hard to get a hook into.
Audience Reviews for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Beautiful quirky graphic style, but the dialogue was blah and Steve Zissou was not a likable character. Only Owen Wilson's heartfelt earnestness salvaged the film for me. I liked the story and dialogue in Fantastic Mr Fox and Grand Budapest far better.
Super Reviewer
An aging underwater nature documentarian assembles a team to hunt down the jaguar shark that ate his partner, including a pregnant journalist he has a crush on and a pilot who may or may not be his illegitimate son. It's "Moby Dick" by way of Jacques Cousteau, an epic comedy with a great cast, pirates, and deliberately artificial animated tropical fish; it's also the driest underwater comedy you'll ever see.
Super Reviewer
[img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img]
Super Reviewer
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Quotes
| Bill Ubell: | We fucking stole it, man. |
| Steve Zissou: | Wolodarsky, go get the keys to that fishing boat, and throw them in the water. No, wait. They might have another set. Just blow it up. |
| Steve Zissou: | I wonder if it remembers me. |
| Steve Zissou: | This is an adventure. |