Absolutely Anything is mostly notable for reuniting the legendary Monty Python crew. They lend their voices to a council of aliens that view themselves as the superior life forms of the universe. They run into one of the Pioneer spacecraft, and thus become aware of the existence of Earth. As superior beings, they decide to give the Earth a test, choosing one random human to receive the power to do absolutely anything to see if they have the capacity to distinguish between good and evil. The power is given to Neil (Simon Pegg), a lowly schoolteacher who pines for his neighbor Catherine (Kate Beckinsale).
It feels like this movie should be about what a man does when granted the power to do anything. There’s certainly a lot to unpack there. But instead, this film is largely about Neil being in love with Catherine. Crucially, the film makes sure that he doesn’t use his powers to make her fall in love with him. That would likely be too morally difficult for this film. It isn’t nearly courageous enough to deal with the consequences of unlimited power. Instead, this is a movie where a dog is given the power to talk. Because apparently, that’s as far as the imagination of this movie goes.
The movie mainly mines its laughs from Neil’s newfound powers being terribly pedantic. Neil has to word his requests very specifically in order to get the desired effect. For example, upon seeing a rainy day, he asks that the weather be like it is in Los Angeles. At which point, it immediately becomes night. This is fairly amusing the first few times it happens, but it becomes increasingly tedious as things go on. Because it becomes clear that the movie doesn’t really have much more in store.
Neil just never grasps the full potential of his powers. He seems to conveniently forget about what he can do when faced with a misunderstanding or a genuinely troublesome situation. There is a subplot where he makes a woman literally worship his best friend. When things go predictably wrong, Neil doesn’t just immediately reverse the situation. This makes the character a lot less sympathetic. It takes a while for the film to get around to dealing with some real issues that could be addressed with these powers, and the unintended consequences of these particular wishes are the smartest thing in the movie. But there isn’t much more of that in the film.
Instead, we are treated to the tepid and wholly uninteresting romantic subplot between Neil and Catherine, who is also being pursued by an extremely jealous one time fling played by Rob Riggle. The actors give these characters a lot of charm, but this never becomes anything. It’s just another story of a girl realizing that the nice guy she sometimes runs into is a viable romantic partner. This has never been interesting, and it continues to be one of the lamest ways to further a romantic subplot.
Absolutely Anything does have a few funny moments, but that’s no surprise. The talent involved is so formidable that there would have to be some glimpses of genius in there. But the package as a whole isn’t worth it. It’s all just incredibly lame, the film all at once too loose and not silly enough. The film needed to commit to something. It could have tightened things up and really considered the consequences of having absolutely power. Or it could have gone all the way silly. Either choice would have been better than what we got: a tepid romance that isn’t really worth caring about.
My Rating:
