This film will probably win the Can film festival award. I've never like any of those and I didn't like this film either. It says comedy, it isn't! Pink Panther was dumb but at least it made you laugh. This film is just plain dumb. Bill Murray's days of SNL, Strips are gone forever and this film proves it.

I was looking for something fun to see, a comedy - even a dark comedy, but this movie was a bit more melancholy and depressing than it was funny. It had it's moments, but Bill Murry's character seemed too weighted down in misery to make this a light-hearted movie.

A bit slow, and wandering, with a romantic potential that held little interest. I enjoyed the few special effects of computer animated sea-life and wish they'd spent more time on that than some of the flat relationship scenes. If you enjoy Bill Murray, you should eventually see this flick, but you might want to wait for the DVD rental.

All the really good moments were in the trailer.

It\'s possible that there\'s a level of brilliance here that went way over my head. If there was, it wasn\'t well done.

Bill Murray is good, but "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" has low energy. I had a mixed decision on this film and I can't recommend the film. It could be more funny and charming, but it ran out of stream.

Wow. I just saw all the other reader reviews here and am apalled that nobody seemed to like this movie. I found it to be very, very funny. The entire cast is absolutely incredible. Bill Murray is a master of the subtle, wry wit that directer Wes Anderson uses in his films. Owen Wilson is very endearing and has great onscreen chemistry with Bill Murray. It was great to see him tackling some tough material after fluff like "Starsky & Hutch". Cate Blanchett is better here than she was in "The Aviator", and she has great chemistry with both Murray and Wilson. Willem Dafoe gives by far the funniest performance in the film (and one of the funniest of the year) as the German first mate Klaus.

I very rarely come near tears in a movie. Crying just doesn't happen to me. It's only happened twice: once for the sheer beauty of LOTR, and in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". But one of the final scenes -- the one in the submersible -- got to me. The bizarre special effects -- brought to life by the animator behind "The Nightmare Before Christmas" -- are haunting and the scene itself is incredibly touching.

Wes Anderson also has the distinction of putting in his film the most effectice death scene I've seen in along time. I won't ruin it for anyone, but the director doesn't use any tricks like swelling music or overdramatic shouting (NO! GOD NO!!!). He simply lets the scene be what it is without monkeying with it, and it is all at once surprising, subtle, and deeply tragic all at the same time.

So while I can understand how people can say the movie drags on (the whole pirate subplot seems to go on for too long, and the movie should have been around fifteen minutes shorter) so did the "comedy classic" of the Hollywood season, "Meet the Fockers". For anyone looking for a movie that provides lots of laughs, great characters, a great cast, and just something a little different than the average Hollywood fluff, "Life Aquatic" is your ticket. **** out of four, and one of my top five of 2004.