I still might be a little too shaken to write about how damn disappointing Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is.  Worth neglecting Blade: Trinity and Spanglish to see?  Absolutely.  Worth mentioning in the same breath as Anderson’s Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums?  Absolutely not.

Aquatic, Anderson’s first venture without co-star Owen Wilson credited as a writer, still features that filmmakers' hallmark standards which we’ve grown to know and love over the years: The sets are impeccably and obsessively dressed, the soundtrack is uncannily appropriate, the comedy continues to brilliantly flirt with absurdist minimalism, and the performances are practically unequalled.  But the story, penned by Anderson and triple-indie loser Noah Baumbach (Kicking & Screaming, Mr. Jealousy, Highball), lacks both the emotional oomph and overall cohesiveness of Rushmore and Tenenbaums.

Aquatic is about a team of underwater explorers who make exciting discoveries (on par with the Tenenbaums’ 367^th Street Y) and present them in a series of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau kind of documentary films.  The squad – called Team Zissou, after leader Steve Zissou (Bill Murray, Lost in Translation) – have matching outfits, from their red knit hats to their sneakers, and do their thing on a used military vessel called The Belafonte.  Think of a more diverse, deep sea version of Cecil B. Demented’s Sprocketholes, and you’re in the right neighborhood.

Team Zissou, however, has seen finer days.  Their ship and its instruments are hysterical dated, their funding has been slashed, and Steve’s wife, Eleanor (Tenenbaums’ Anjelica Huston) – widely believed to be the brains behind the organization – is about to take up with her ex-husband (Jeff Goldblum, Igby Goes Down), who also happens to be Steve’s biggest rival.  To make matters even worse, Steve’s partner and best friend Esteban (Tenenbaums’ Saymour Cassel) was, on their last mission, eaten by what is believed to be a jaguar shark.

No less vengeful than Captain Ahab, Steve and his eclectic crew set off to find the Esteban-eating shark to destroy it.  Possibly with dynamite.  For revenge.  They get funding from a pilot from Kentucky (Wilson, Starsky & Hutch) who has recently learned he is Steve’s illegitimate son.  So Steve and crew, along with a magazine reporter (Cate Blanchett, The Missing) and a bond company stooge (Bud Cort, The Big Empty) set off on an adventure that none of them will forget.

Sounds pretty fricking huge and complicated, don’t it?  What follows gets points for slyly mocking reality television and the new wave of documentary filmmaking, not to mention to incredible cut-away of The Belafonte, which enables viewers to see all of the ship’s compartments at once (even the sauna, complete with full-time masseuse).  Murray is, as always, perfect as the impossibly gruff Steve (impossible because of the full-time masseuse and non-stop dope smoking), and Willem Dafoe (The Clearing) is the standout from Aquatic’s huge supporting cast.  If you don’t count the guy (Seu Jorge, City of God) who does little but play acoustic covers of David Bowie classics sung in Portuguese, anyway.

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for language, some drug use, violence and partial nudity