Hitchhikers review

This is a review, of sorts, of the recent movie version of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I was going to write it just after seeing the movie but in the end, for reasons that will become clear, I just didn't feel like it. A recent email from someone saying "So, did you see it?" prompted me to write the following review... of sorts. A kind of "half-hearted guide to the hitchhikers guide" review.

Lets cut to the answer, the ultimate answer, of life the universe and everything... 42. Yes, that's about what I would give the movie out of 100. It may be a tad low, because I think I'd rather see it than not so really it should be a little over 50% score, okay, so lets say 42 out of 80.

I know a great many other distinguished movie reviewers gave HHGTTG some glowing reviews. Even those I figured would probably hate it. Personally I had high hopes, I really thought this time, they were really going to get it right. Perhaps the movie deserves another look but I have to say I was disappointed, and to paraphrase Marvin, most of the minutes were pretty good, but most of the seconds were pretty awful. Okay maybe not awful, that's too strong, perhaps mediocre and certainly not of the same quality I usually associate with Adams work. I really start to wonder who it would have turned out if he had survived to see it to the finish. We'll never know and that will have to remain as one of the great unanswered great questions.

I think people who have only ever read the books liked the movie more than those familiar with the original radio show. As for people who are not familiar with either, nor Brit-humour-o-philes? Forget about it, they mostly hated it - especially Americans. After watching the movie I checked the Yahoo user reviews and of 1300 over 250 gave it an "F" in all classes - many said they left the movie outright. This clearly wasn't the universallly appealing whacky space adventure comedy like, say, Men In Black, that it was marketed to be. So a lot of people went to see it would probably have never bothered if they'd know it was another Brit comedy that needs brain to be engaged and cellphone set to silent ("what you mean I have to listen to the words while I watch?").

A couple of the best comments from the Yahoo reviews were "If this ever comes out on DVD it will have the words "Don't bother" on the cover in large friendly letters", and the other one was "If the ultimate answer is 42 then the ultimate question must be "How many minutes will it be before you walk out of Hitchhikers?". Clearly at least some of this reviewers were more intelligent than semi-evolved simians and I applaud their consumate humour in face of a disappointing movie experience. Now guys, the secret is to keep banging the rocks together...

The stuff I liked - the Vogons were wonderfully portrayed, although in quiet a different light from their mean callous nature in the original story. Their gargantuan size, inscrutable officiousness (is that a word?) and their fleet of ships - all wonderful. I liked Trillian and Slartibartfast, and the rest were okay, but not outstanding. Marvin was good - a much better imagery of his nature than in the TV show, that huge round head weighing him down really worked as did his voice over by Alan Rickman.

Stuff I didn't like - well the creation of a love interest with happy ending from Arthur's infatuation with Trillian really didn't work for me. I'd love to know if this is something that Adams actually wrote in the original screenplay versions or something that Hollywood jammed in. Plus the whole thing about the point of view gun and stuff which is from a much later book, and busting people out of jail... didn't work for me, out of place, and not terribly funny on its own. I wish they hadn't mangled some of the excerpts from the Guide, I know them too well to hear them edited. I just hope there's a directors cut with the full versions in it. That said The Guide animations themselves were great. I wasn't too fond of Zaphod's second head scenes, although it was an imaginative take on that - and much more successful than the TV show version which was more like a parrot of a head.

I should add the scene following the inifinite improbability drive deployal in which they all turn in the yarn characters - that was a hoot that really made me laugh - inspired imagery I'd say - of the metaphysical kind. If the movie had all been of that quality it would have been a blast - the biggest bang in sci-fi comedy since the big one.

I did like the ending at Magrathea, gotta love "Its a wonderful world" and such, but at the end I had to temper it with my feelings of "Oh well, not again", as in not again, another not entirely satisfactory rendition of the hitchhikers story. But at least this is probably the last, I really don't think there is the impetous or money for anyone to do anything else with it. If they had been smart they could have just stuck to the book and left it open for lots of sequels, but the way the story got wrapped up it was self contained and I doubt there will be enough money to fund a sequel. I'll trade 6 hours with the radio series of any visualization any day.

I think perhaps if they had spent the same money on three 2 hour not so fancy non-movie renditions it could have been a lot better. A BBC sci-fi made for TV kind of thing - sort of the high quality stuff that HBO puts out like Six Feet Under or Sopranos. Quality writing matched with quality production and a bunch of effects, but no Hollywood spoilers involved. A rehash of the original TV series if you wish but with all the modern effects and the original story line - hopefully the radio show one which I always prefered to the book story line. Plus if you stick to the radio script you don't have to spend all that money on script writers and screen writers.

Regardless of whether I've put you off, if you're a fan of The Guide you have to go see it, if only to pay your respect to the legacy of Adams' Life the universe and everything Hitchhiker-ish.