The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Runtime: An interminable 119 minutes

Directed by: Wes Anderson

Starring: A great cast that I wish would have been in something better and more fun for me

From: Touchstone Pictures

Give me THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH JASON STATHAM (a.k.a. The Meg) any day of the week.

I stole a line from a random Letterboxd user but I wish this experience-which only occurred after some recent on-line discourse-would have lead to something I would have actually enjoyed. I did go into this with an open mind as some really talked it up and what an incredible lead cast it has. Unfortunately...

The premise sounded fine to me: a parody of Jacques Cousteau is a fading figure who wishes for revenge on the creature that killed his friend. What I got instead was a different experience than most people have had with this picture. I have mentioned in the past how modern comedy films for the most part do nothing for me in terms of garnering laughs and humor.... that was the case here. Instead of entertainment and mirth, all The Life Aquatic did was present a bunch of awkward moments and pretend that was funny-admittedly, that's a big problem with me and modern “humor” and it's present in a lot of films-along with the general off-putting smug self-satisfied nature of this and being weird for no real purpose.


Sure, there were David Bowie songs and that was cool, but as a general rule I think a movie will automatically turn me off if there is Sigur Ros present, as to me that is just about the ultimate in pretentious crap, an aural attack on my poor eardrums. Everyone else in the film community can love Anderson and his twee nonsense; me, I'll be happy to avoid the rest of his filmography as there are many legendary motion pictures I haven't watched yet and I am sure I'll have a much better time seeing those rather than something that I thought was an irritating waste of time aside from a few clever bits and the film at least looking fine visually.