[yasr_overall_rating]
A group of eccentric aliens confers a human being with the power to do absolutely anything, as an experiment.
I so badly wanted to like this movie. When I saw the trailer, it made me laugh out loud and with the combined talents not just of Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale onscreen, but behind the scenes, director Terry Jones, who has helmed such classics as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “Life of Brian,” “The Meaning of Life,” and “Erik the Viking,” one could be forgiven for thinking that “Absolutely Anything” would be absolutely hilarious. And with the additional assembly of the rest of Monty Python, including John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin, as well as Robin Williams in his final performance as a dog, and a cameo by Eddie Izzard, how this film wound up being so unfunny with so much talent involved, is beyond comprehension. The plot is basically “Bruce Almighty,” but instead of God giving our lead protagonist the power to do anything he wants, here, it is a group of intergalactic aliens who visit planets throughout the universe, and give one individual from that world, unlimited powers but they have to use them for good, otherwise, the aliens will annihilate the planet and everything on it.
Neil (Simon Pegg) is a schoolteacher at a local secondary school who dreams of bigger things. He fantasizes about writing the next big novel and he is head-over-heels in love with his neighbor Catherine (Kate Beckinsale), who just happens to be a book editor. He wakes up one morning and realizes that he has the power to do anything he wants but has no idea where he received them from. He uses the powers to make fellow teachers at school like him, when his best friend Ray (Sanjeev Bhaskar) informs him that he has a crush on a fellow teacher but that she doesn’t even know he exists, Neil changes that, and then he gives his dog Dennis the ability to talk, who is then voiced by the late Robin Williams in his final movie role. When Catherine is visited by Grant (Rob Riggle), an ex who just happens to be a trigger-happy American Marine who won’t accept that his relationship with her is over, Neil tries to intervene to save the day utilizing his powers but winds up being knocked out by Grant instead. When he awakes, Dennis is tied up and held at gunpoint and Grant forces him to change the world according to what he wants, including Catherine falling back in love with him forever.
The plot is basically a carbon copy of “Bruce Almighty,” with Simon Pegg standing in for Jim Carrey and Kate Beckinsale substituting Jennifer Aniston. While I enjoyed “Bruce Almighty,” a lot of that was due to Jim Carrey and his genius comic interpretations. I like Simon Pegg and loved him in “Hot Fuzz” but where in that film he played the straight-laced hero, opposite Nick Frost’s at times bumbling buffoon, here, he is basically acting opposite a dog. He has little interactions with those around him and for a movie of this ilk, reciprocity is vital. There is only so much exchange a human can have with a dog, even when this universe’s rules state that the dog can talk back to him, but listening to him constantly drone on and on about wanting biscuits all the time, gets old real fast. One probably can’t blame Mr. Pegg and Ms. Beckinsale too much for wanting to appear in this misfire, with comic genius Terry Jones directing, the script probably appeared much better on the written page than it wound up on the silver screen, and that’s a shame, with a little more character development and story exposition, this could have been an instant classic.
Now available on DVD & Digital HD
