The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
It's taken me almost exactly two years to get around to seeing the Hollywood adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. As with many, many films it quickly progressed upon its release date (April 20, 2005) from a deeply anticipated potential classic to just another film.
I sometimes wonder if it'd be better if they just never actually released films - at least that way I'd be more likely to remain excited about them. It would probably save a huge amount of money too with minimal print and advertising costs. I'm not sure how the theatrical chains would manage to sell any popcorn, but to be honest I don't really give a stuff about that.
In any event, at some point in the last month I managed to rouse sufficient enthusiasm to prioritise HHGTTG (well, if they will insist on such a long title they should expect such abbreviation) on my LoveFilm list.
I found the opening scenes mostly enjoyable, largely due to the fact they just seemed like a shinier, newer version of the scenes I remember from the TV series. Having Stephen Fry as the voice of the book was pure genius - I think I could have had an entire film of nothing more than narrated extracts from the book and been perfectly happy.
Martin Freeman made a pretty good Arthur Dent, and successfully created a new version of the character for those of us who have Simon Jones' performance indelibly imprinted on our brains. Mos Def (an actor/singer I'm not that familiar with) was enjoyable enough as Ford Prefect, but ultimately suffered from what seemed a much reduced version of the role (i.e. he had less to do in this film than the TV series, book, radio show, etc).
However, it was shortly after the film began that things started to go a little wrong. Somehow two of the most inspired casting choices proved fairly disastrous. Alan Rickman just grated as Marvin the paranoid android - possibly suffering in comparison to the iconic performance of Stephen Moore in the TV series. Meanwhile Sam Rockwell positively irritated as Zaphod Beeblebrox. True, Zaphod is an annoying character, but in this film Zaphod's second head (don't make me explain that) is possibly the most annoying thing ever created in the span of human history (except, maybe, Victoria Beckham).
There's also a significant lull as the second act gets going, which almost had me reaching for the Stop button. There's a needless subplot revolving around a character played by John Malkovich (apparently created by Douglas Adams himself) - and to make matters worse this subplot is never even resolved!
Luckily there are a few saving graces. The visuals in this film are simply stunning. In fact they're so good that I pity the designers for having wasted their talents on such a mixed result of a film (just as I pity anyone who's first exposure to the incomparable wit of Douglas Adams is this sorely compromised script).Zooey Deschanel gives a great portrayal as Trillian. Equally, Bill Nighy takes a memorable stab at Slartibartfast, the morose planetary designer with an affectation for coastlines.
So, there are some good things about this film - principally the visuals and Stephen Fry. There are several mediocre things, and a handful of downright bad things. Watch it by all means, but please have a copy of the book, TV series or radio show immediately to hand with which to wash down the unpalatable taste of this big screen adaptation.
