Absolutely Anything

Dir: Terry Jones

2015

***

Absolutely Anything has everything you could possibly want from a surreal sci-fi comedy and yet it misses the mark on more than one occasion. Quite spectacularly even. It sees a young teacher called Neil (Simon Pegg) randomly bestowed with unlimited powers by a counsel of passing Aliens who give him said powers for a short period of time to see if he does anything worthwhile with them. If he fails to do good with his new powers the Aliens (voiced by the Monty Python team) will destroy the planet for the good of the universe. It's a fantastic concept but the script misses many tricks and the script, characters and structure are deeply disappointing, especially given all who are involved. Pegg does a good job in the lead role but is ever so slightly let down by an often dodgy script and lack of consistency of character. Kate Beckinsale's character has an utterly pointless subplot of her own that has little relevance to the overall story but is put in place due to lack of character development. She is purely there as eye candy, which is totally unfair to her really, even if her acting abilities aren't all that great. Terry Jones is funnier than this, or at least, he was. It breaks my heart somewhat saying that. I love Monty Python and Terry Jones but much of this film is poorly executed and horrendously misplaced. The return of the Python's should have been something quite wonderful but alas, it's utterly disappointing. Jones has stated that the script for Absolutely Anything has been knocking about for over twenty years and was very loosely based on H.G. Wells' The Man Who Could Work Miracles. While it has similar themes to H.G. Wells' short story, it felt more like a Douglas Adams idea. Indeed, before he died in 2001 Adams (a friend and writer for the Monty Python team) said he read and liked the script and suggest what all the best bits were to Jones. I can't help but wonder what his full involvement really was. As I was watching it I couldn't help but wish that Douglas had written the script and Terry Gilliam had directed. It's not all bad though, far from it. The overall idea is still great and something to enjoy. I liked the conclusion and some of Neil's wishes were very funny. However, it is Neil's dog Dennis who really steals the show. One of Neil's wishes is for his dog to have the ability of speech so he can understand why he continually barks. His wish is granted and Dennis suddenly speaks, voiced by the great Robin Williams in what would be his very last role in a motion picture. I'm being very generous in my rating but to be fair the film did get progressively better after a fairly awful beginning. It's very close to being a great comedy, close but so very far away at the same time. If you try to ignore the very obvious fact that it is a frustratingly wasted opportunity you will find just enough in able to enjoy.