Those who opt to stay through the closing credits of Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou--a film about an eccentric oceanographer with a loyal following--will get slightly more than a rolling list of caterers and crew. Almost as if to summarize the film, Zissou (played by Bill Murray) appears and strides boldly alongside the water, with the members of Team Zissou falling in behind him.

Or is it not Zissou and his team at this point, but Murray the actor leading a pack of other actors, whose facial expressions-Isn't he great? And isn't this fun?-make sense read either way? In any case, this epilogue would also seem to be a metaphor for the way Anderson works-wherever his idiosyncrasies lead him, his "team," including core members Murray and Owen Wilson (each a star of two other Anderson pictures), is game to follow.

Anderson truly has a gift for attracting talent. The Life Aquatic cast includes Willem Dafoe as Zissou's would-be second in command; Cate Blanchett as a pregnant reporter (whom Zissou nonsensically refers to as a "bull dyke" in between failed efforts to seduce her); Jeff Goldblum as a snarky, self-satisfied colleague who wins all the grants; Michael Gambon in heavy glasses who discusses business with Zissou and punctuates his conversation with "Darling!"; and Anjelica Huston, Zissou's wife and "the brains behind the operation," looking formidable though nowhere near as attractive as she did in Anderson's Royal Tenenbaums.

Presumably these actors find it a relief to play roles atypical for Hollywood, to take part in a film where the conversation isn't about love or bank heists or apocalypse, but about jaguar sharks and favorite colors. "We're a pack of strays, dontcha get it?" says Zissou at one point-a noteworthy observation. There's a Peter Pan-ness to The Life Aquatic, where men sail in unprotected waters and steal each other's cappuccino machines, like overgrown boys in need of mothering. No wonder so many of them are attracted to Blanchett's pregnant character, whereas no attention is paid the younger, often-topless female intern, whose role is minor.

In addition to familiar faces and welcome new ones, The Life Aquatic offers Anderson fans chromatic brilliance, bravura plot twists, deadpan delivery and gigantic antique telephones. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, these things don't add up to much of a movie. What's missing? A coherent story, for one thing. There's almost no rhyme or reason to what happens; there are fragments aplenty but they don't add up to a whole. I also felt the absence of dramatic tension, psychological import. The camera seems to be sitting too far back from the actors; I wanted them to fill the frame, so I could see something happening between them. There is a sweet chemistry between Murray and Wilson, who plays the son Zissou never knew, but not enough to make the difference. Anderson has never been one for sweeping emotionalism, but in the past he's given us characters who are complex and vulnerable beneath their pride, bluster, deprecation and mockery. As it turns out, Anderson's humor depends on that heart.