Neil (Simon Pegg) is a rather ineffectual teacher who lives, with his dog Dennis, upstairs from gorgeous Catherine who he secretly fancies. Neil is chosen by aliens to represent the human race: they give him the power to be able to do anything. If he does good, the human race survives: if not, it will be destroyed. Neil, of course goes for the trivial and selfish.
Co-written and directed by Terry Jones and featuring him and the other Pythons as the voices of the (nicely realised) CGI galactic council, this is an odd swansong for the Pythons after their O2 concerts. And it's also an odd film generally. A very British take on Bruce Almighty, some of it works, and some really doesn't. The stuff which works is the literal-mindedness of Neil's power – unless great care is exercised, he finds that what he wanted to happen is not exactly what he wished for – when he asked for a great body, he wasn't expecting it to be female, for instance. This is a problem all the way through, and it is always amusing. There were three elements which, for me, didn't work at all. One was a section about halfway through featuring some unnecessarily explicit conversation – this was completely out of place. This led to the second, which was Catherine's arbitrary decision to have sex with Neil. This seemed to have no logical basis other than plot convenience. And the third was Catherine's ridiculous delusional stalker/ex-"boyfriend" Grant (Rob Riggle), a character who seemed wildly unrealistic and out of place: considering the film featured 5 aliens called Maureen, Janet etc., that's saying something.
This is enjoyable, but not a classic.
Co-written and directed by Terry Jones and featuring him and the other Pythons as the voices of the (nicely realised) CGI galactic council, this is an odd swansong for the Pythons after their O2 concerts. And it's also an odd film generally. A very British take on Bruce Almighty, some of it works, and some really doesn't. The stuff which works is the literal-mindedness of Neil's power – unless great care is exercised, he finds that what he wanted to happen is not exactly what he wished for – when he asked for a great body, he wasn't expecting it to be female, for instance. This is a problem all the way through, and it is always amusing. There were three elements which, for me, didn't work at all. One was a section about halfway through featuring some unnecessarily explicit conversation – this was completely out of place. This led to the second, which was Catherine's arbitrary decision to have sex with Neil. This seemed to have no logical basis other than plot convenience. And the third was Catherine's ridiculous delusional stalker/ex-"boyfriend" Grant (Rob Riggle), a character who seemed wildly unrealistic and out of place: considering the film featured 5 aliens called Maureen, Janet etc., that's saying something.
This is enjoyable, but not a classic.