Absolutely Anything

Much like The Circle from two weeks ago, Absolutely Anything is filled to bursting with top tier talent, only to be let down by a script that doesn't know what to do with the actors it managed to attract.  This is becoming a trend with star-studded films.  In this case, we come for laughs, and as the names of the cast and crew flashed on the screen during the opening credits, I grew increasingly excited.  But the cast is largely wasted, and the movie itself never lives up to its potential.

The movie is directed and co-written by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame), making his first film since 1996.  Apparently, this had been a dream project of his for over 20 years when he made it back in 2014. (The film was released in the U.K. in 2015, and is just now getting a small release in the U.S.)  Not only is Jones behind the camera, but he has managed to reunite his fellow surviving Python members (John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and Jones himself).  They provide the voices for a group of CG aliens (who look like left over special effects from the Men in Black movies) who call themselves the Galactic Council.  Fans will be disappointed to learn that their roles in this film amount to basically an extended cameo.  In the live action roles, we have Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Eddie Izzard, and Joanna Lumley,   We also have Robin Williams giving his final performance, in a voice over role.  There's even a fun pop song by Kylie Minogue to play over the end credits.  The movie does its best to juggle all this talent, but it often comes across that they are being shuffled in and off the screen at random, and nobody gets a chance to stand out.

The tone to Absolutely Anything is completely off.  It's lethargic and tired.  Here is a premise that cries out for endless comic possibilities, and all it can dream up is jokes about dog droppings and massive male genitalia.  How has Jones, the man who directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail, been reduced to this?  What was going through the mind of these actors as they were being forced to play out scenes that feature gags on the same intellectual level of a knock-knock joke?  Were they just thrilled to be working together?  This probably was a fun movie to make, but it's hard to watch sometimes.  It has a lame and cheesy look (and it's not just the special effects), and the script is filled with blackout gags that seem to be building to something, but pull back before something funny can actually happen.  It's frustrating, and it often comes across like the movie is selling itself short.

The plot: The aliens calling themselves the Galactic Council have decided to destroy Earth, as humankind has proven itself to be a silly and useless race.  However, they decide to give the planet one last chance.  They will grant a random person with God-like powers to do anything they wish.  If that person can use those powers to make the world a better place within a certain amount of time, they will spare Earth.  The man that is chosen is Neil (Simon Pegg, overacting and constantly mugging for the camera), an overworked and stressed school teacher who has to look after horrible students all day, gets yelled at by his landlord, and longs for Catherine (Kate Beckinsale), the young woman who lives in the apartment below his.  He learns he suddenly has these powers to make his every desire come true when he makes the flippant wish that all of his students were dead, and an alien spacecraft flies in, blasting his classroom and killing all the students within.

Let me use this scene as an example of how Absolutely Anything constantly goes wrong.  Is the idea behind this dark?  Very much so.  But, I can also see how it could be funny.  But the gag never builds, not even when Neil wishes that the students were alive again, and he unwittingly starts the Zombie Apocalypse by having the dead rise from their graves.  Again, I can see this idea being funny, but the movie bungles it by simply not building to anything.  We see the dead rise, we see some people scream, and then Neil wishes it all way, as if nothing had happened.  Wouldn't it be funnier if one of his co-workers said to him the next day, "You won't believe what happened to me last night...".  Whenever Neil changes the world to suit his own desires, nobody seems to notice or care, which kills a lot of the comedic potential that lies within its very premise.  When he wishes that Global Warming would end, we get to see a brief news report about the world going into another Ice Age, and that's all we get before he wishes things were the way before.

Neil initially uses his powers to help himself out (he wishes for a better body, or a bigger penis), as well as to give his dog Dennis the ability to speak English (his voice is provided by Robin Williams).  He also tries to help out others, such as his friend at work, Ray (Sanjeev Bashkar), who has longed for a woman at the school for years.  Neil's power not only makes her fall in love with Ray, but to worship him to the point that she creates a cult-like religion built around the guy.  Again, funny in theory, but the joke doesn't build to anything worthwhile.  He also naturally tries to use his powers to get closer with Catherine, which often don't work out as he plans, until he learns to be himself around her.  This provides some nice moments during the last 10 minutes that come far too late to salvage the film.  Unfortunately, most of Catherine's scenes are built around dopey scenes of an obsessed stalker of hers (Rob Riggle) that provide no laughs and an obnoxious character that I wish had been written out of the movie.

With the cute talking dog showing up in so many scenes and the whimsical premise, you would think that Absolutely Anything might be aiming for a family audience.  However, the movie contains some strong language and a lot of unfunny sexual humor, giving the film a confused tone as well as a lifeless one.  I'm trying to think of the kind of audience this would attract, outside of the fans of the actors who got suckered into it, and I'm coming up blank.  I'm sure the fact that this is the first time the Monty Python team has worked together in over 30 years would be a draw, but those who show up for that reason will be disappointed by how little they're given to do as the grotesque aliens who kick off the plot. 

However, it's the Python team who sum up the film best with a line of dialogue, when the John Cleese alien remarks late in the film, "The dog's not so bad, it's the people I can't stand".  I kind of hate it when a movie reviews itself with its own dialogue, but there you go.

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