Writer: Jerome Salle, Laurent Turner (Screenplay) Jean-Michael Cousteau, Albert Falco (Book)
Starring: Lambert Wilson, Pierrre Niney, Audrey Tautou, Laurent Lucas, Benjamin Lavernhe, Vincent Heneine
Plot: Highly influential and a fearlessly ambitious pioneer, innovator, filmmaker, researcher and conservationist, Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s aquatic adventure covers roughly thirty years of an inarguably rich in achievements life.
Tagline – One of the biggest productions in the history of European cinema!
Runtime: 2 Hours 2 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Interesting Biopic
Story: The Odyssey starts by taking us back to 1949, Jacques-Yves Cousteau (Wilson) is known as a great explorer around the world with his loyal wife Simone (Tautou) by his side, his reputation is growing with his latest adventure.
When Jacques’ latest job takes him away from home, he proves to become one of the greatest researchers and filmmakers of all time, with his children Philippe (Niney) and Jean-Michael (Lavernhe) grown up, they join him on exploring the oceans of the world. we see how Jacques goes about making history with his own documentary show and how over time his action will affects his wife and son.
Thoughts on The Odyssey
Characters – Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a great inventor whose ambition drove technology to a new level, underwater exploring, his fame takes his reputation to new heights as he sets out on new projects working with his son for new incredible discoveries underwater. He however has his vices which push his wife away and tries to hold his own son back from being as great as he is. Philippe is his son, the son that gets involved with the same research as his father, he is fearless which only leaves his father questioning his actions, it will be one of his action that brings his father his hardest day. Simone is the long suffering wife of Jacques, she stays by his side
Performances – Lambert Wilson in the leading role is good and does cover the man through over 30 years of his life in the process. Pierre Niney also gives us a good performance which is what you will be finding looking at the whole case, everyone is good without being standout.
Story – The story here follows the life of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, one of the great pioneers and explorers of the modern era, he helped making underwater exploration a possibility and was one of the first people to understand that there was a problem in the world’s oceans. We follow 30-years of his life through the success and through his hardest days. As with any biopic we get to see just moments from this man’s life, which can help show us where he once went and just what he achieved, we could have seen more about just how many other people would challenge his ideas and go onto use them too.
Adventure/Biopic – The adventure from this movie comes from seeing the things that Jacques and his crew discovered over his career and blends with the biopic side of the story perfectly to teach us about the origin of certain elements of film making we admire most from the greats out there now.
Settings – The film takes us to many different settings, we see the great ocean views above and below the water which only make us go wow, we get to see just how difficult the family life would have been for an explorer too.
Special Effects – The effects are mixed because they are used wonderfully well with the make up and aging processes, but certain water scenes don’t work as well.
Scene of the Movie – The underwater scenes look fantastic.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We don’t see enough of the relationship with the other son.
Final Thoughts – This is a strong biopic that any fans of the genre will be enjoying, it shows us just how influential one of the great explorers of the world would have been.
Overall: Nice biopic.
Rating