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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 6.59%
Worth A Look: 33.52%
Average: 25.82%
Pretty Bad: 12.64%
Total Crap: 21.43%
13 reviews, 104 user ratings
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| Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The |
by Erik Childress
"Fans Can Go Ahead And Panic Now"
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I am a serious latecomer to the world of Douglas Adams. My first memory of The Hitchhiker’s Guide was that of the computer game that my fellow grade school students would flock to the library for after school and sign-up for hour blocks to play. I actually never played the game and never got around to either the book or hearing the original radio series. Two decades later, the serious Hitchhiker fans that I know are as giddy as school girls on pot about the film version so I thought it was time I acquainted myself with at least one of the books. What I found was a sharp-witted and delightfully enjoyable read that reaffirmed my statement that the best comedy comes out of the UK. What I found in the film version is that not all things translate to the big screen, particularly when the focus is more off course than a Vogon construction fleet going through governmental paperwork to save their grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.The film version opens with such a splendid, doubled-over-in-laughter prologue/title sequence that it’s hard not to think that the filmmakers got it right and our prepared to take us on a witty ride through Douglas Adams’ universe. It’s such a shame that the dolphins had to leave before they had a chance to help make the movie. For those who have found themselves in the same Hitchhikers-less boat as I was for the past three decades, let me bring you up to speed.
Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, from the UK version of TV’s The Office) is having an interesting morning. He wakes up to discover that his house is scheduled for demolition and his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), is actually an alien. Oh yeah, and the Earth is also going to be destroyed to make way for an interstellar highway. After escaping certain death (twice and barely shedding a care for his lost home planet or the staggering casualty rate), Arthur and Ford hitch a ride with the President of the Galaxy (slash playboy), Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), his depressed robot, Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman) and the Earth girl, Tricia “Trillian” Macmillan (Zooey Deschanel), who Zaphod stole from Arthur at a party some nights earlier.
Their journey hardly consists of a series of vignettes, although that’s an easy description for their route to discover the meaning of the universe. It’s plot is almost biding time, diverting the confrontation of a question which should be the film’s driving force. Instead we find interruptions by the galactic police force (which scream Jim Henson studios of the mid-80s) and a over-fascination with the anti-“normality” of hyperspace travel which should be as much of a theme of their discoveries rather than an overused gag.
The plot of the Hitchhiker’s Guide should come a distant second to the asides which formed the real joy of the books. The history of the universe and its inhabitants gave Adams his springboard for the wry wit of the observations and sly jabs at American culture. As such, Stephen Fry’s narrator is the most enjoyable aspect of the film and is lost for a good chunk of the second act, opening up a black hole in the incredibly thin personalities of our heroes and a warmhole for outright boredom.
The narration is an integral function for the film to introduce the memorable passages which couldn’t be incorporated into a cohesive narrative, plus Fry’s readings are as entertaining as any audiobook of Adams’ work. Why more of it wasn’t relegated to Ford Prefect and the characters in the know by screenwriters Karey Kirkpatrick (Chicken Run) and Adams himself (completing several drafts before his death in 2001) remains a mystery. We’re left with the absence of much of the Twain-level drollness which is just as imaginative, if not more, than the fantasy and visual aspects.
Immediately lost is the clever way Ford explains that the demolition team doesn’t need Arthur to lie in front of the bulldozers to prevent them from razing his house. Instead he just gives them beer which is more like a vulgar American solution to the problem. A few questions to the actual guide (with possibly a graphic-style nod to the early interactive games) are posed and the philosophy of the flying Sperm whale is gleefully intact. However, the utilization of the towel as the most important calling card in the galaxy is never explained in words and becomes nothing more than an inside joke for those already well-versed in the history of the series.Hardcore fans of any production from the written word to film are often very hard to read. How far will their loyalty stretch to forgiving aspects of an adaptation that they may know in their heart of hearts carries a disappointment that they aren’t willing to come to terms with. Sometimes you get the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sometimes Andrew Lloyd Webber’s name is attached to it. The opening alone is enough to glide most through the rocky passages. The climactic planet factory is a visual feast as much as the wisdom of asking too many questions is an intellectual one. Neither the journey nor our heroes rise to that level though. As Mark Twain once said, “the human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” Perhaps that page was torn out of the filmmakers’ used copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11932&reviewer=198
originally posted: 04/29/05 14:03:36
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USA
29-Apr-2005 (PG-13)
DVD: 13-Sep-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
28-Apr-2005
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