The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou **** (2004, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Noah Taylor, Bud Cort, Seymour Cassel) – Classic Movie Review 600

Effortlessly strange, the 2004 comedy The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is another crazy cult hit movie from Wes Anderson, the maker of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. It boasts a dazzling ensemble cast, who take their silly roles absolutely seriously and eagerly grab their chances to shine.

The script by Anderson and Noah Baumbach may be a little bit patchy, but this is a highly amusing, often brilliant surreal wacky comedy. Bill Murray is on his best exuberant form as Steve Zissou, a Jacques Cousteau-style deep-sea adventurer in search of a mysterious and possibly non-existent killer Jaguar shark that has killed the man who was his buddy and partner.

And so Steve sets off on a wild expedition to hunt down the shark, along with his Team Zissou crew comprising his estranged wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston), a beautiful journalist called Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett) and a co-pilot named Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) who could possibly be Zissou’s son.

Who’d have thought that Willem Dafoe was a funny guy? – but here he is hilarious as German oddball Klaus Daimler. Jeff Goldblum as Alistair Hennessey, Michael Gambonn as Oseary Drakoulias, Noah Taylor as Vladimir Wolodarsky, Bud Cort as Bill Ubell and Seymour Cassel as Esteban du Plantier also stand out in that special cast.

The old David Bowie songs are used to devastating effect – sung in Portuguese to an acoustic guitar! – Oh! You Pretty Things, Ziggy Stardust, Life on Mars, Changes, Rebel Rebel, Lady Stardust, Space Oddity, Five Queen Bitch and more.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is dedicated ‘In memory of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and with gratitude to the Cousteau Society, which was not involved in the making of this film.’

The main cast are Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Noah Taylor, Bud Cort, Seymour Cassel, Seu Jorge, Robyn Cohen, Waris Ahluwalia, Niels Koizumi and Pawel Wdowczak.

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