Absolutely Anything (2015)

I can forgive a lot of things when it comes to movies.  Using an idea that someone else has used isn’t the worst sin you can commit.  When you get down to it, each film has elements of previous stories in it.  What I will judge a movie on is what it adds to the idea.  If you’re going to remake a movie, why should someone watch yours rather than the original?  Absolutely Anything isn’t really a remake of Bruce Almighty, but does have a lot in common.  Both are about men who are given unlimited powers.  Whereas Bruce Nolan gained his powers as a result of challenging God, Neil Clarke gained his as a result of aliens wanting to test humanity.

When several aliens find one of the Voyager probes, they travel to Earth to destroy it, but decide to at least give us a shot at redemption.  One human will be selected randomly and given the ability to do absolutely anything, even if it’s not normally possible.  That one random human is a school teacher named Neil Clarke.  If Neil can use his powers for good, humanity survives.  If he uses the ability for evil, Earth gets roasted.  Oh, and the aliens don’t tell Neil about it at all.  He’s left to figure out he has powers all on his own.  No pressure.

Somehow, Neil manages to figure out about his powers rather quickly.  We’d all like to think that we’d use such powers to better humanity.  Instead, Neil uses them for all manner of random things.  Many of the gags are one-of jokes, usually involving the literalness with which the wishes are rendered.  In one scene, Neil wishes for the body of a great man and is made to look like Albert Einstein.  In another, he destroys his classroom.  When he wishes for everyone to be alive again, long-dead people start coming out of their graves.

Few of them last more than one scene.  He has a friend, Ray, who is interested in a woman that ignores him.  Neil makes the woman worship Ray, leading to a cult.  The cult then proceeds to chase Ray all over town.  Neil also realizes that he can give his dog intelligence and a voice.  This leads to the obligatory embarrassing scenes with love-interest Catherine.

There really isn’t anything new in this movie.  If you’ve seen similar movies, I don’t think you’re going to find any surprises.  Neil gets the powers and eventually realizes how hard it is to use them, even when he does try to help people.  The difference here is that his epiphany comes very late in the movie.  It ends up being a string of situations that Neil fumbles with before feeling regret and maybe getting it somewhat close to right.

Part of the problem is that there’s only so much you can do with such a concept.  You can do what The Greatest American Hero did and have a guy who genuinely wants to help people.  Or you can do what Absolutely Anything did and just use it as a way to string scenes together.  Yes, that’s kind of harsh, but it’s true.  There was some potential here and it seems somewhat wasted.

It’s also worth noting that this was the final movie for Robin Williams, who voiced Neil’s dog.  I didn’t think that Williams was as high strung as he usually was, which by itself is a bit of a waste.  He was a little hyper, like you’d expect a dog to be.  I felt like he didn’t have as much screen time as I would have liked.  It ended up being Simon Pegg’s show.  If you come across this on Netflix, I would recommending holding off on it until you’re absolutely out of other movies.

IMDb page

Click (2006)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


When I first saw the coming attractions for this movie, I had no intention of seeing it. I’m not a fan of Adam Sandler and felt that Click would be too goofy of a movie for me to really enjoy it. Then, a coworker saw it. He said that it was a lot more serious than most of Sandler’s movies, but still had its moments. It was then that I began to wonder how bad it could really be.

The movie is about Michael Newman (played by Sandler) who can’t keep track of all the remotes that he has. One night, he sets out to find a universal remote. He ends up in Bed, Bath & Beyond, where he meets Morty (Christopher Walken) in the ‘Beyond’ section. Morty has a truly universal remote, which allows Michael to control the universe. He can mute his dog, fast forward over arguments with his wife and even make his boss (and everyone else) speak Spanish, French or any other language.

When he gets this remote, Michael thinks that there’s no possible down side. He can skip ahead to the end of an unpleasant dinner or go ahead a few months to that next promotion. The trouble is that he’s missing out on a lot of things. (The wait for his next promotion turns out to be a year instead of two or three months.) It turns out that the remote creates a whole set of new problems, and Morty isn’t willing to take it back.

Now, I have to say that regardless of how serious the movie is, it’s still an Adam Sandler movie. As my coworker pointed out, Sandler just had to make a joke during the most serious point of the movie. This could have been a totally serious movie and Sandler could have handled it quite well without making too many jokes.

I’m not saying that I didn’t like the humor. It’s just that I don’t think that Sandler will ever break away from what I initially expected of the movie. There were a lot of funny parts, many of which made it into the trailers. Come to think of it, this is one of the few movies that I’ve seen where the plot does seem to stick to what was presented in the coming attractions. There was a comedic slant to most of the movie. There were a few things that I won’t spoil for you, but I do think that if you liked the trailer, you’ll like the movie.

I don’t think that the movie is appropriate for younger children. Although there was no nudity, there were a few adult moments. For instance, the Newman family has a dog that’s particularly fond of a plush toy. You might want to watch the movie before deciding whether or not your children should watch it.

As for older audiences, I’ll give this movie four stars. It’s not perfect, but it was definitely better than I expected. 

IMDb page

Total Recall (2012)

I tend not to like remakes.  Rarely do they add anything except make it look modern.  In this case, we have two movies based on a short story.  (Both versions of Total Recall owe very basic elements to the story “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick.)  The short story is about a man who comes to realize that there‘s more to his life than what he thinks he remembers.  That’s where the similarity ends.

Here, we have a dystopian future where most of the planet is uninhabitable.  The two remaining areas are the United Federation of Britain and The Colony.  (The Colony is actually just Australia.  Why they couldn’t just call it Australia, I don’t know.)   A man named Doug Quaid is thinking about going to Rekall.  Quaid is a lowly factory worker.  He can’t afford to go on vacation, so Rekall will “remember it for him” as their ad goes.  A coworker warns him not to do it; Rekall has a reputation for lobotomizing people.  Another coworker tells Quaid not to worry about it.  He even recommends one of the technicians.

Well, the implantation goes bad when a SWAT team breaks into the Rekall lab.  Amazingly, Quaid is able to escape.  It turns out that he’s not really Doug Quaid and his lovely wife of several years is actually his handler.  His memories were erased and he was given a new life.  He manages to find out that he was part of a resistance.  People in The Colony are the lower class while the UFB is basically the upper-class people.  The UFB has some nefarious plan that Quaid’s former self didn’t want to see come to fruition.  Or did he?  Either way, it’s up to Quaid to stop it unless he’s not going to, assuming that was the plan all along.  Or was it?

I think this is one of those cases where if you saw and liked the 1990 version, you’re probably not going to be thrilled with this one.  The 1990 version was much better.  We had the issue of identity, which is brought up briefly here.  There’s the issue of what’s real and what’s an illusion, which is mentioned only in passing.  (It comes across mostly as a reference to the 1990 version, but more on that later.)

I remember hearing about the remake and wanting to see it.  I knew I probably wasn’t going to like it as much, but I had to see if they could improve upon it.  Not only did they not improve upon it, I think they even took something away.  Instead of being based on the same source material, this is more of a flashy action remake.  We have the same corrupt leader.  We have the same wife that’s not a wife.  There’s even a three-breasted woman and a comment on the desire for a third hand.  What we don’t have is anything to make you think about the movie.

As I mentioned, there were a few scenes that were referencing the original movie.  Quaid uses the same technology to get to The Colony, which I think was only called The Colony because there was a Martian colony in the original movie.  (Look closely when Quaid arrives in the UFB.  Pay attention to the woman going through security.)  In another scene, Quaid’s coworker is trying to talk Quaid into shooting his fellow resistance member, saying that this is all a dream back at Rekall.  If you’re thinking of seeing Total Recall, I’d recommend skipping this one and just watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger version. 

Total Recall (1990)