The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Directed by Garth Jennings.
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy.
Set as a space adventure across the universe, this is Douglas Adams’ brilliant novel brought to life, combining science fiction, comedy, adventure and philosophy all rolled into one.
The movie begins with Arthur Dent, a timid British fellow who is about to have his home demolished to make way for a bypass. Incidentally, on that exact same morning, the Earth is minutes from complete destruction as revealed by his best friend who is surprisingly an alien. Together, they hitch a ride with the nearest spaceship in hopes of survival. As we follow Arthur’s adventure, not only do we discover that a towel is the most useful item for travel, the electronic Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy contains answers to every helpful thing, but in fact the very answer to the meaning of life itself. Throw in a love story, and you’ve got yourself a funny, entertaining movie.
Hitchhiker’s begins fantastically, and follows the satirical humour of Douglas’s book. Amusing and bringing about a few great laughs initially, the film does have its slow moments midway through. The jokes become less clever and more obvious, and there are times when you’re left thinking if the genre of the film may have been aimed at young children. For those that have not read the book, the film redeems itself with fantastical revelations that are not to be missed.
The character to watch out for would definitely be Marvin, a robot in the throes of depression. His pessimistic outlook on life and his genuine human quirks, makes him infinitely loveable.
Overall I’d give the film 6/10.
Katie Lu
The towel’s the thing. At world’s end don’t throw the towel in, grab it. If like our hapless hero, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), you find your ‘world’ has been scheduled for destruction by "bad-tempered, officious and callous" bureaucrats, hopefully you have in some time past, ingratiated yourself to an ‘alien’, who knows their way around the mind bogglingly, huge universe.
Fifteen years earlier Arthur had found his ‘friend’ standing in the middle of the road proffering a bunch of flowers to an oncoming car. This alien, having mistakenly deduced that automobiles were the dominant life form, named himself Ford Prefect (Mos Def) and was attempting to ‘meet and greet’. Arthur, in one pro-social swoop, saved his life.
It is such humor that made Douglas Adams’s BBC radio show The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy an instant success in 1978. H2G2 is homage to this, his user-friendly guide to unknown worlds. It is a super light-hearted romp through a universe which has a workshop that designs and builds planets, on which Alice in Wonderland type characters plant bunches of grass and paint the finishing touches. Doomed planets are thereby replaceable. In this universe evil is "bad temper and red tape", pain is "punishing poetry readings", and mostly pain is "love". In harmony with this philosophy the film makes limited use of CGI.
The greatest challenge in this film might be a "bath-robed hero" and perhaps, a "dated disrespect" for technology; 7.5 million years to compute, indeed?
Along the way we meet the president of the Universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), his girlfriend, Trillion (Zooey Deschanel), Marvin, the GPP Robot and many other strange characters.
"Don’t Panic" is an overstatement, but in case you do break a sweat, make sure you’ve got your "most massively useful" H2G2 towel, I’ve got mine.
Lou Crow
Hitch Hiker's is OK. It's one of those 'it could have been great, it could have been abysmal' reworkings that ended up in-between. It's hugely more abridged than the TV series (which was abridged from the books which were abridged from the radio play) and misses a lot of great lines and jokes. I don't get the 'musical' opening at all — you'll know what I mean when you see it; you'll love the gun (a new idea for the film); cringe at the way they crow-barred a romance in and the resulting clichéd dialogue; raise an eyebrow over the way they implemented Zaphod's second head (maybe better than the wobbly remote controlled robot head which didn't work properly in the TV series); and wonder at the sets which are much cheaper looking for reasons that escape me considering the quite reasonable quality of the special effects. Not even the acerbic Alan Rickman can get to the level of utter depression Stephen Moore imparted to Marvin's voice but Stephen Fry is very good as the book, the graphics for which are also, mysteriously, worse than the TV series. Nobody could top the now deceased Valentine Dyall for Deep Thought's voice (Valentine had an almost preternaturally deep and resonant voice, even more so than Orson Wells), now a female computer enunciated by Helen Mirren. The acting varies (Trillian is awkward and a fraction unconvincing, so no change from the series there), Ford is fine but he's shuffled off to one side in most scenes, and Arthur is well played which comes as a pleasant surprise. Those that have seen the series should keep an eye out for several guest appearances though it has to be said the film holds little for those who have seen the BBC TV series, read the book, bought the T-shirt (as opposed to winning it at an AUFS film night). The main point of making a feature film would have to be to unleash Douglas Adams' most famous work on a new generation. It does OK.
Jonathan
