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100The director of "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" scores his most funny-sad movie to date.
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100Aquatic maintains its buoyancy throughout.
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100For those of us who think this is the best comedy of 2004, the genius of the movie lies in its relocation.
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90An exquisitely evocative movie that elevates rueful melancholia to a superpower.
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88Like the old and creaky Belafonte, the film itself seems forever on the brink of drifting away. But it's the kind of drifting that's nothing but enjoyable. In fact, it's beyond enjoyable - heading into waters full of whimsy, mystery and odd, psychedelic fish.
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80Wonderfully weird and wistful adventure-comedy about a fish-out-of-water oceanographer.
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80The actor's (Murray) quiet, downcast presence modulates the antic busyness that encircles him, and his performance is a triumph of comic minimalism.
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78Funny, bewildering, giddy spectacle.
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75Wilson drops the ironic smirk to give a sincerely affecting performance. His scenes with Murray provide the ballast when the script veers off into unconvincing pirate attacks and animated sea creatures.
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75Intermittently brilliant, intermittently hilarious -- and occasionally tedious.
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75It's almost a great movie. For half of its running time, Anderson maintains a distinct and arresting tone of vague absurdity, and then he loses control and the film begins to dip into silliness. Individual scenes become labored. Yet even at its worst, The Life Aquatic is always interesting -- there's really nothing else like it.
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75A movie deeply immersed in movie lore, and the more seasoned the swimmer the richer the experience.
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75Wes Anderson's movies taste that way to me. They're dryly funny, well-acted, never less than quirkily entertaining. But they're never more, either.
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70Even when caught in a rut, Anderson's obsessive vision still yields many exhilarating surprises.
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70Hovers frustratingly somewhere between charming and only mildly amusing.
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70Nobody could leave The Life Aquatic without the impression of having nearly drowned in some secret and melancholy game.
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67As someone who has warmed up to Anderson's work only gradually, I'd call this a step back for him, but I also can't help but wonder: Will he ever take that crucial step forward and stop saying, Isn't it ironic?
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67A fascinating, masterly, frustrating film, it only passingly touches on the heart and sharpness of Anderson's previous work and rather brings to mind the famous complaint of the emperor in "Amadeus": "too many notes."
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67None of it is truly inspired, but Murray's deadpan presence holds it all together.
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63The damnedest film. I can't recommend it, but I would not for one second discourage you from seeing it.
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63It is not as engaging as "The Royal Tenenbaums," but about on par with "Rushmore" and "Bottle Rocket."
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60The garish, exotic, retro styling is Anderson at his visual best. In terms of character and sensibility, though, this is sadly Anderson at his worst.
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60Somewhere buried beneath all this ballast something is being said, again, about flawed middle-aged men falling from grace and redeeming themselves. This time I'm damned if I know what that something is.
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60Murray is always pleasurable company, and his barely suppressed soulfulness might've supported this dawdling big-fish story if its insistent larkiness had abated and let a little reality in, as had "Rushmore."
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60Noah Baumbach collaborated on the arch script, whose bittersweet weirdness leaves a residue even as the narrative disintegrates.
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50A comedy that seems to have most everything going for it but the ability to make us laugh.
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50The movie still feels strangely inert; it's an adventure in which nothing ever really seems to happen.
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50Nothing but attitude.
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50The film's meta-fey title alone is an example of why some people adore Anderson and why he drives others absolutely crazy.
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50Will ultimately be remembered more for the trademark Anderson look than for any of its characters or any emotional impact.
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50Overburdened with knowingly charming touches. It's waterlogged with whimsy.
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50The more technically proficient Anderson gets as a filmmaker, the more emotionally barren his movies become, till at last The Life Aquatic drowns in a sea of self-indulgent touches that delight the filmmaker but distance the filmgoer who wants to love the director and his characters but just can't, not anymore.
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50This one is a mess--a misshapen, mawkish tragicomedy bordering on self-parody. Its ambitions deserve respect, though.
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50The effect is often soporific.
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50There's a lot to appreciate here, especially Mr. Murray's variations on the sad but hopeful soul he played in "Rushmore" (and in "Lost In Translation"). Yet meanings get lost in a clutter of cleverness.
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40It's so cool all the life has drained away, leaving nothing behind but a faint whiff of attitude.
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38If there's anything more tiresome in film today than hip irony, it is forced irony, and here comes a boatload with Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
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25It's the strangest comic misfire yet from Wes Anderson.