‘Aquatic’ splashes into theaters

When Wes Anderson directs a film, his stamp on it is unmistakable. The melancholy humor and strong performances of his previous projects made “The Royal Tenenbaums” a hit and turned Bill Murray into a bona fide respected actor.

His new film, “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” is at times so over the top that it often seems like a film school student trying to make a movie like Wes Anderson would.

“The Life Aquatic” follows the tail end of the career of undersea filmmaker Steve Zissou, a third-rate Jacques Cousteau with a pot habit. He made a good film once, and since then both his life and career have been slowly spiraling down the toilet.

As the movie begins, Zissou is showing the first part of his newest film, called “Adventure No. 12, Part 1, The Jaguar Shark.” In it, his best friend is eaten by an unknown breed of shark, though the film crew manages to miss the attack. Afterwards, he vows revenge on the shark, and tries to secure financing for an expedition to kill the shark.

Soon, it becomes apparent how far Zissou has fallen. His ship (shot as a cutout so the audience can see all the rooms at once) is barely sea-worthy, his reputation is that of a wasted talent and no one wants to fund his expedition.

To make things even more complicated, he meets Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), a Kentucky airline pilot who may be Zissou’s son from a nearly forgotten affair. Ned falls in love with a magazine reporter on the ship for a feature (played by the amazing Cate Blanchett), and the tension between the two keeps their relationship alternately fuzzy and barbed.

Anderson has made a film full of strange characters, including Zissou’s commanding wife (Anjelica Huston), her snide ex-husband and Zissou’s rival Alistair Hennessey (the snide Jeff Goldblum, and a deckhand who sings David Bowie songs on the acoustic guitar — in Portuguese). To add to this fantastic cast, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon and Bud Cort also play roles.

This is the first film that Anderson has not written with usual partner Owen Wilson. The result is a more surrealistic and sarcastic story, a sort of SpongeBob on LSD impression.

Though the film has been criticized as a movie full of hip in-jokes, there’s actually plenty of depth to the characters, parodic as they may be. Zissou shows his pain as he must sit back and watch his life fall apart as he tries to complete his final adventure. Wilson tries to forge a father-son relationship with the man he idolized as a child, but also loves the woman Zissou has his eye on. Huston glowers as she plays mother to the entire crew and briefly re-unites with Hennessey.

Alternately hysterical and heartbreaking, “The Life Aquatic” is a genuine and emotive comedy, something that doesn’t open at the megaplex every week.

Grade: B+