The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Criterion Collection | 
| Director: Wes Anderson
Actors: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe
Studio: Miramax Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $3.31
You Save: $16.68 (83%)
New (44) Used (58) Collectible (3) from $3.31
Rating:  339 reviews
Sales Rank: 4055
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dvd, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), Icelandic (Original Language), Italian (Original Language), Portuguese (Original Language), Tagalog (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: DISD40464D
ISBN: 0788860291
UPC: 786936286892
EAN: 9780788860294
ASIN: B0007UC8Y4
Theatrical Release Date: December 25, 2004
Release Date: May 10, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, director Wes Anderson takes his familiar stable of actors on a field trip to a fantasy aquarium, complete with stop-motion, candy-striped crabs and rainbow seahorses. And though Anderson does expand his horizons in terms of retro-special effects and a whimsical use of color, fans will otherwise find themselves in well-charted waters. As The Life Aquatic opens, Zissou (Bill Murray), a self-involved, Jacques Cousteau-like filmmaker, has just released a documentary depicting the death of his best friend Esteban, who was eaten by some sort of sea creature--possibly a jaguar shark. Zissou's troubles also include his waning popularity with the public, and a nemesis (Jeff Goldblum) who hogs up all the grant money. Hope arrives in the form of Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), an amiable Kentuckian who may be Zissou's son. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for fatherhood, Zissou welcomes Ned--and Ned in turn saves Zissou's new documentary (in which he seeks revenge on the jaguar shark) in more ways than one.
One of Wes Anderson's greatest achievements as a director to date has been launching the autumnal melancholy phase of Bill Murray's career, starting with Rushmore in 1998, and Murray delivers a similarly comedic yet low-key performance here. Unfortunately, Zissou is one of the few characters in this ensemble to achieve multi-dimensionality. Even co-star Wilson doesn't get to develop Ned much beyond Noble Southerner, and he ends up seeming more like a prop for illustrating Zissou's emotional development rather than his own man. The Life Aquatic probably won't be remembered as a great film, but it is still one that no Anderson (or Murray) fan can afford to miss.--Leah Weathersby
Product Description
Internationally famous ocenaographer steve zissou & his crew set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious elusive - possibly nonexistent - jaguar shark that killed zissous partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 05/16/2006 Starring: Bill Murray Cate Blanchett
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| Customer Reviews: Read 334 more reviews...
 Love this movie June 30, 2009
Amy R. Moore
i bought this movie for my husband for father's day since it's his favorite. he loved it and has watched it several times already.
the movie got here quickly and i was pretty happy with everything except that now i get a bunch of emails from amazon.
 Not a cookie-cutter movie but for the kid in of all of us June 26, 2009
jumpy1 (New York, NY)
I've never felt inside a story so much as I feel watching this film. People have criticized this film a lot but it brings me back to the great kids' adventure shows of the past but with more cynical dialogue and more sophisticated sets. And while Angelica Huston is wonderful in everything, she really cracks me up in his films, she is always a burst of fresh air. Wes's style reminds me of her father's in that he creates seductive environments in order to tell a story - like John Huston did in Moulin Rouge, The Dead, The Maltese Falcon, etc. But Wes seems to let the scenes and dialogue evolve out of that, just letting them be what they are, so that instead of the usual contrived space-filling dialogue, the characters talk and act like I can believe they might actually do given their circumstances. While the story is fantastical it is never fakey.
Heck, I wish the sea creatures and books and movie posters in the film were real, so I could check them out! I love the cartoons, the music, the locales, the characters, the script, and Willem Dafoe is a fantastic treat. He really did steal the show, if that's possible given all the greats in this bunch.
The Criterion edition, with all the extras, almost satisfies my longing for a sequel or a TV show based on these characters.
Wes Anderson is a genius May 7, 2009
The Tao of Netflix (Washington, DC)
This movie is a wonderful viewing experience. Wes Anderson has a very distinct flair for storytelling (verbally and visually) that really shine in this movie, far more (IMHO) than his previous films. He does a great job of portraying the resolutely downtrodden - Bill Murray is a bordeline washed up naturalist/film maker, and his despair coupled with immense self contempt coupled with a seething disdain for the human race is brilliantly portrayed. I especially enjoy the camera work, another characteristic of Anderson. He's great at the wide angle shots, often including many actors in a single frame. This seems like a very difficult thing to pull off, but he does so masterfully. Can't say enough.
A Strange Film Hard To Rate On One Viewng March 12, 2009
Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA)
I find this a hard movie to rate, but I gave it four stars because it was entertaining. It's a odd film: one of these low-key black humor films which is a mixture of drama and comedy. What set this apart were a few other shocking scenes of violence, something not normally in this type of movie. For a comedy, albeit a tongue-in-cheek one, that violence doesn't seem to fit, but it makes the film all the more intriguing.
At times I was totally bored with this movie and at other times fascinated. I know one thing: this is a bizarre story! That automatically means it's a good vehicle for Bill Murray, who excels at wacky characters, even the low-key ones as he sometimes plays (i.e. Lost In Translation, The Royal Tenebaums, etc.). Speaking of the latter, this movie was written and directed by Wes Anderson, the same man who did "Tenenbaums." If you saw that, you have an idea of what you might get here, although I thought Royal Tenenbaums was funnier.
At 118 minutes, this a bit long for what it offers. I'd like to have seen it 15 minutes shorter with a tighter script. But it does offer some good photography in addition to the strange story. For the colors, I'd like to see this on Blu-Ray. This movie, as they say, is not for all tastes.
The Wonderful Life Aquatic of Murray & Friends February 24, 2009
The Northern Light (Europa, Close to Ultima Thule)
I must have watched this film like 5 times already, and more viewings are bound to follow. It is just so hilariously amusing and strange that you can't but love it. Of course, this might not be everyone's cup of tea when it comes to comedy; the humour lies mostly in the rather large cast, quick lines and the strange situations these characters get entangled in, not in vulgarities and physical humour. Bill Murray is as always funny in his own corky kind of way, but the biggest star of the film to me and a friend that keeps joining me to watch this; Willem Dafoe! Dafoe in his character of Klaus Daimler, a German engineer that is Steven Zissou's (Murray) biggest admirer and fellow crewmember, is simply so good and amusing that I laugh to tears at some of the scenes he's in.
The "plot" of the film is that Zissou is a former star in a long range of underwater films, his stardom now apparently heading for rock bottom, along with his marriage. His nemesis, "Captain Hennessy" (Goldblum) is taking all the fame while Zissou suspects he's also after his wife, whom he used to date. This and another hint at miscegenation is mostly the only thing bad I can think of about this work of art. Zissou's best friend and long-time crew member; Esteban, is then killed by some kind of shark while they are filming, and the entire film is then about Zissou's mission for "revenge" on the shark and all their adventures spawned from that. In addition to this, Ned Plimpton (Wilson) makes his appearance, as Zissou's potential son, and their attempt to get to know each other has some role to play in the film.
Steve Zissou: Esteban was eaten!
Klaus Daimler: Is he dead?
Steve Zissou: Esteban was eaten! Check the scanning monitor before it dives too deep!
Klaus Daimler: He was bitten?
Steve Zissou: Eaten!
Klaus Daimler: [shocked] He was swallowed whole?
Steve Zissou: No! *Chewed*!
Enough said. Brilliant comedy that I guess you either love or hate, judging from the reviews here. 5 stars!
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