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Absolutely Anything stars Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation) as Neil Clarke, a man who is granted the power to do absolutely anything, but just as an experiment. He’s granted this by a group of eccentric aliens, voiced by the entire Monty Python cast – Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
The film has a huge cast including Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Eddie Izzard, Rob Riggle, Emma Pierson, Alexa Davies, Robert Bathurst, Judy Loe, Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Professor Brian Cox, Georgie-May Tearle, plus the late, great Robin Williams as the voice of Dennis the dog (trust me, it’ll make sense when you see the trailer).
Absolutely Anything is directed by Terry Jones, who also co-writes with Gavin Scott, and while it looked like it might be worth a watch, it’s time for a collective sigh as the film has been censored. Normally, it’s 20th Century Fox doing this, with films such as Taken 3 (and the previous two), A Good Day To Die Hard, The Maze Runner and Kingsman, but now it’s the turn of Lionsgate.
It could’ve been an uncut 15-certificate, but it’s been slashed back to a more family-friendly 12A by snipping out the swearing.
The BBFC website confirms: “This film was originally seen for advice. The company was advised the likely classification was 15 but that their preferred 12A could be achieved by reducing the quntity of strong language. When the film was submitted for formal classification, the number of uses of strong language had been reduced and the film was therefore classified 12A.”
Hence, I won’t be seeing this on the big screen when it’s released on August 14th, but may check it out on Blu-ray if Lionsgate grow a pair and release it uncut. Why on earth should customers pay out good money in the cinema (and it’s not cheap!) to watch a censored movie?
I hope Simon Pegg and Terry Jones can do something about this.
(Note that the BBFC site also says “BBFC Insight for this work will be available on or after 04/08/2015”, but it never gives more information about what precisely is cut)
Check out the trailer below and click on the poster for the full-size version.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.