The phrase "anything but impressive" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to express that something is not impressive at all, often in a negative or critical context.
Example: "The presentation was anything but impressive, leaving the audience disappointed."
Alternatives: "far from impressive" or "not impressive at all."
But for other people, that transaction is anything but impressive, and here an interesting double standard emerges.
DENVER — Driving to Boulder from here offers a spectacular mountain panorama, but the nearer view is anything but impressive.
For the first couple of weeks, lava oozed from a fissure on its ice-free flank, and the resulting ash plume was anything but impressive.
The performance of activist funds in 2015 and January 2016 was anything but impressive.
Dortmund has yet to lose; actually, he has yet to be anything but impressive in his five races.
Thus, Einstein never accepted that quantum mechanics was anything but an impressive placeholder for a more fundamental theory conforming to his realist credo.
But if anything is impressive about Sharpton, it's the sheer breadth of his hypocrisy.
Officials in London, the 2012 host, seem reluctant -- perhaps simply because they're British and don't really do Muscle-Flexing Nationalism -- to make the main stadium impressive for anything but its modesty.
The lyrics themselves aren't anything impressive, but their relevancy was accompanied by a personality, a network, a movement and a high-quality video that was able to go viral, rack up 70 million views and -- more importantly -- push the progressive argument further.
As it turned out Jackson's goal was the highpoint of Toronto's afternoon, as New England, powered by the impressive Lee Nguyen, looked anything but star struck on a field they'd never won on.
But he also said he hasn't seen anything that impressive in wearable computing to date – including Google Glass.
