MOVIE REVIEWS
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Amichai Greene
Before I begin I must confess a fondness for the material. I have read all the books, listened to the radio program, and seen the TV miniseries. I have not played the video game, but I have read the novel by Terry Gilliam based on the video game. Star Trek has trekkies (and trekkers), Star Wars has… well only Star Trek has a cute name for the obsessed fans, but there are legions of Star Wars fans, and legions devoted to the Lord of the Rings universe. Though I might enjoy other works of science fiction and fantasy, I am, at heart, a Douglas Adams nerd and this movie delivers that much need Adams fix fellow Adams nerds and I have been waiting for.
The movie is an adaptation of the novel with the same name. It is the first of five in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (yes you read that right, a five book trilogy as described by Adams himself). The movie is faithful to the book in the same way the book is faithful its predecessor the TV miniseries, and the miniseries to its predecessor the radio program. Which is to say, they all capture the same flavor, yet are prepared and presented in different fashions (and slightly different orders)? In all versions the story begins with the destruction of the Earth to make way for a interstellar hyper space bypass. The two sole survivors are Briton Arthur Dent (played by Martin Freeman) and the American Trisha Macmillan, also known as Trillian – it sounds more Sci-Fi she says (played by Zooey Deschanel). Through sheer improbability they wind up together on the Heart of Gold space ship along with Arthur Dent’s best friend and secret alien Ford Prefect (played by Mos Def) and the two headed three armed president of the galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox (played by Sam Rockwell) currently on the run for stealing the Heart of Gold space ship in the first place.
From there, things get progressively weird.
The fans of previous works may be disappointed with the Arthur-Trillian-Zaphod love triangle sub plot not found in any of the story’s previous incarnations. I felt that it worked quite nicely and found myself surprised that it never came up before. All the ground work had been laid out, and only now did Adams (who penned a draft of the script before his unfortunate passing in 2001) bring it to fruition.
Both the acting and the directing is top notch and the jokes are funny. The opening song and dance number is almost worth the price of admission on its own. All this not withstanding, as a fan I was hoping for a lot more. Instead of a sharp yet subdued British wit the movie decides to go for the big over the top style found in mainstream American comedies (I’m looking at you Adam Sandler).
A lot of Zaphod’s funniest lines were discarded to make room for Sam Rockwell’s idiot cowboy routine; not the Zaphod I was hoping for. I would have preferred they kept Zaphod the smarmy, always cool and collected idiot found in the books and British productions instead. Though entertaining at first this character’s vapidity wears thin as the film moves on.
The funniest moments were those found in the dialogue, most cribbed directly from the source material, the type I would have liked to have seen more of. These moments, unfortunately, were in the minority as too often the movie went for the big easy slapstick laugh mostly associated with Ben Stiller’s pictures instead of the clever one liners Douglas Adams is famous for.
If you are a fan like me, the obvious desire to cater to an American audience can be both distracting and disappointing, but doesn’t ruin the movie. But whether you’ve read the books or not this is definitely the big summer blockbuster comedy we’ve all been waiting for.
