Absolutely Anything – Pegg and the Pythons

It’s hard not to like ‘Absolutely Anything’ – Simon Pegg, best known for his role as ‘Shaun’ in ‘Shaun of the Dead, Spaced’ and almost every other film where he’s played a slight variation of his usual loveable slacker alter-ego – plays, well, her a variation of his usual loveable slacker alter-ego.  However, when he’s wandering around in London one day pining over his neighbour, Kate Beckinsale, he’s given the power to have anything and everything he wants by the cast of Monty Python (albeit computer-generated alien monstrous versions of themselves who live in a space ship and decide to test humanity in this way to see what happens – and whether to blow the entire planet up while they’re at it!).  All Pegg has to do is wave his hand and his innermost desires come to fruition.

He therefore fixes the entire world’s problems and everyone lives happily ever after. 


Okay, so that would make a pretty dull film.  Everything goes about as swimmingly as you’d expect given a man who talks to his dog unlimited superpowers.  You’ll notice I opened this review with the line ‘it’s hard not to LIKE Absolutely Anything.’ I didn’t use the word ‘LOVE.’ And the reason being that this is basically one of those films that you can have on in the background and do other things and not really miss that much.

It’s definitely not bad.  It’s just not a ‘classic’ comedy.  Yes, the appearance of the (remaining) Monty Python boys is always welcome.  Even their beautifully-weird alien incarnations are as madcap as their geriatric human selves.  And it’s great to see them all together on screen again.  In some ways... the film could just be about them and would be even better!

Pegg plays Pegg.  Kate Beckinsale plays ‘generic love interest #56’ and there’s an array of characters who you’ll sort of recognise from other things, but not really know where.  The only real stand-out character (besides the CGI pythons) is the dog.  The reason being because one of Pegg’s wishes is that his pet can talk.  And talk her does.  For he’s voiced by none other than the (sadly) late, great Robin Williams and, yes, he’s definitely on a par with the Pythons when it comes to enjoyable screen time.

If you’re looking for a fun little comedy to pass the time then this would fit the bill.  It’s a nice enough film which doesn’t really try to be anything too amazing and should appeal to pretty much everyone.  Once you know the premise then you’ll probably predict every last plot point that’s to come.  However, I certainly couldn’t bring myself to hate it and will definitely re-watch it again in a couple of years.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that