Too many kooks

Like his previous work, The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson's fourth film is peopled with idiosyncratic and self-regarding characters. Wilfully bizarre, it is the filmic equivalent of an old curiosity shoppe stuffed with flimflam, gee-gaws and porcelain phrenological heads.

Sitting impassively in the centre is Steve Zissou, a bearded Jacques Cousteau figure, a maritime adventurer whose best years are behind him and whose ploddingly dull educational films are premiered to slow handclaps. Bill Murray delivers a magical performance, so low key it's almost flat-lining.

His estranged wife is played by a distracted Anjelica Huston; Willem Dafoe is a right-hand man wound a bit too tight, Owen Wilson is a pipesmoking, possibly tranquillised Kentuckian who might be Zissou's bastard son and Cate Blanchett is a pushy journalist.

Then there's Zissou's dastardly rival in the shape of Jeff Goldblum; an absurdly plummy and possibly larcenous agent, Michael Gambon, and an unnamed crew member who signals the end of scenes with samba versions of David Bowie's early works, sung in Portuguese.

Add to these some animated aquatic creatures and frequent indications that the film set is, in fact, just a film set and what you have is whimsy.

Anderson leaves little room for plot. When a story comes along - Zissou and crew take on pirates while searching for a jaguar shark - it's inconsequential.

The director's fans know that he's been mining this seam of absurdity since Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, the films which made his name. They love him for it. Others wonder when he is going to learn about narrative. Or will his next film feature a similar bunch of superannuated kooks doing not very much to no particular end?

True, Anderson is reacting against sterile, computer-written Hollywood movies. To him, a man who smokes a pipe is just a man who smokes a pipe. Anderson is not alone.

David O Russell (director of I Huckabees) is playing the same game of character over plot.

Both should look back to Billy Wilder, who knew that crazy characters need a strong story. The Life Aquatic is a handsome craft going nowhere.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Cert: 15