smug and artificial – but for fans of Wes Anderson's unique brand of whimsy, it might be worth the dive." The film has a 62/100 weighted average score on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale. Anthony Lane, a film reviewer for The New Yorker, agreed with the conventional criticism of Anderson's deadpan style: that the underreaction of Anderson's characters used to be "hip" but has now become "frozen into a mannerism." He said that "some stretches of action" in the film are being "lightly held within quotation marks," with an "unmistakable air of playacting" in even the most violent scenes. He also criticized the film's deliberately "weird" set ups, which leave the viewer with "the impression of having nearly drowned in some secret and melancholy game." In the years since its initial release it has developed a cult following, and it underwent a critical reevaluation. Many critics view it more favorably, and some, such as Mike D'Angelo of The A.V. Club, consider the film to still be "undervalued" when compared to the rest of Anderson's filmography. Accolades Home media The DVD of the film was released by the Criterion Collection on May 10, 2005 as its 300th title, in both 1-disc version and a 2-disc versions. This is Anderson's third film to be released in the collection, after Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. The Criterion Blu-ray was released on May 27, 2014. References in popular culture The name of Mexican rock band Belafonte Sensacional is inspired, in part, by this movie. Austin Tofte, of Swimming With Dolphins has listed this movie as his favorite film. Epic Rap Battles of History released a rap battle between Jacques Cousteau and Steve Irwin. In one of Cousteau's flex bars, he references The Life Aquatic saying, "I'm so cool, Bill Murray played me in the movie." The Family Guy episode The Tan Aquatic with Steve Zissou'''s title is a reference to this movie. The song Alan Forever on Lupe Fiasco’s album DROGAS WAVE imagines an alternate reality for Alan Kurdi in which he survived his emigration from Syria and “might be the next Steve Zissou or maybe Jacques Cousteau” See also SAS Walvisbaai, the ship used as the R/V Belafonte Jaguar catshark, a species of shark named after the fictional shark featured in the film. References External