The wait for the film adaptation of Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is finally over. Was it worth the wait? Make sure to grab your towel, turn off your improbability drive and read on.
“The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” is the witty, smart and wacky story of an English man named Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) who wakes up one morning to find that his house is about to be bulldozed to make way for a bypass. As Dent is lying down in front of the construction equipment in a poor attempt at keeping the bulldozers at bay, his best friend Ford Prefect (Moss Def) convinces him to get up and join him for a round at the local pub.
Prefect then informs Dent that not only is he not human but that he is a writer for the bestselling book in all the universe (“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) and in mere minutes the Earth will be destroyed by a Vogon construction armada to make way for an intergalactic bypass. Thus begins one of the strangest movies to be released in recent memory.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is one of the best film translations based on a book or other source material I have ever seen. Yes, you read that right: the movie is not just based on the book.
Adams, author of the books and writer of the screenplay, always made sure none of the versions of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” were ever the same. The British TV miniseries, the books and even the radio version are all slightly different, so it is practically impossible to tell which version the film is based on.
However, having read the book I can say that the film is incredibly faithful to them, with a few deviations but does that translate into a good movie? The answer is yes, but only under certain conditions.
The biggest problem is that some of the situations and irreverent humor that worked so well in the books didn’t translate to the screen. This can leave moviegoers who are unfamiliar with the books with a disjointed, confusing experience.
The movie is filled with dry British wit, but if you’re not a fan of this kind of humor (think Monty Python) then you will find little to enjoy about this film. The story is filled with jokes about the bureaucracy of society and such other topics as love, friendship, and even politics. According to the story, you have to have half a brain in order to be a president (a not so subtle shot at American politics).
The choice of cast is absolutely perfect, I can’t think of a better choice to play these characters. Sam Rockwell is amazing as Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the Galaxy. He brings this cocky, brash yet stupid three-armed, two-headed politician to realization, where other interpretations of this character have come off as annoying. My favorite character of the film was Marvin, the manically depressed robot (voiced by the great Alan Rickman), and I couldn’t help but laugh every time he showed up on screen.
The special effects are very well done but not done to excess. The director wisely realized that it is the characters that make this story so good and not a lot of flashy FX sequences. Although there are a lot of FX shots in the movie, they never detract or distract from the actors performance, and they are done with a certain level of cheesiness that I found overall quite charming. Jim Henson’s studios did a wonderful job of bringing the dimwitted, overly bureaucratic Vogons to life, succeeding in capturing both the menacing and goofiness of the alien race.
Although the movie does an adequate job of standing on its own, I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend that people read the book first to get the full enjoyment out of the movie. I really loved this movie and wholeheartedly recommend it to any fan of Adams’ work, but anyone else may have a difficult time understanding the story and enjoying the film. It’s a shame that Adams, who died in 2001, did not live to see his work on the big screen.
For fans of any of the previous incarnations, I give the movie 9 out of 10. For anyone unfamiliar with the story or concepts of “Guide,” I give it a 6 out of 10.