Don't Panic... Hitchhiker's Guide was good

I have yet to see the movie, but I think I'll wait for it to come out on DVD to rent it. The thing is, those are some of the best/most entertaining books ever written IMO, so the movie might be good, but it would have to be fantastic to not be a disappointment for me.

 

Eager to get a fan opinion. That scathing editorial was very demoralizing.

 

I must say that I do a feel a bit like Arthur in that I'm trying to figure out how I ended up in the muddy predicament that I find myself (but in my case it's end of semester; tons of work and insufficient time to get it done.)

I suddenly feel like playing Scrabble.

 

Go see the movie... after your exams. That's how I would handle it.

(me, here, with tons of work, hanging out on the bbs every minute possible instead of doing it. I have never been as burned out as this semester.)

 

Great book. Perfect.

Can't movie. But I've said that before.

Really S$itty book makes great movie. This one is probably dollar cinema.

 

I hear you on the burnout. I love school, but my heart (and work ethic) hasn't been into it for awhile now. I'm looking forward to working in the real world for a change.

 

It was just a decent flick. More like a rental.

Actually fairly faithful to the book - in terms of major plot points and actual lines from the text - but the movie was just kind of so-so to me.

I've read all the books, but I've never been one of the 'that wasn't like it was in the books!' types, so take it for what it's worth.

 

Hitchhiking is cool, towels are good.

Just got back from seeing it and it was much better than I was expecting. I felt it did a pretty good job of capturing the humor from the book and not making it more mainstream.

The cast was also solid. Rockwell was excellent as usual and I am quickly becoming a fan of Mos Def's acting.

 

I saw it tonight. It was damn funny. I was really surprised by the performances by Mos Def, that guy can act. Marvin is absolutely hillarious, I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't do the bit where they left Marvin on a planet and forgot about him. Zaphod is little bit different from the book, you will see what I meant. Also, am I the only one think that they were trying to mod Zaphod from George W. Bush? The way he speaks just remind me so much of GW. Did anyone saw those GB stickers on the van?

 

Well thats one pleasant mixture isn't it.

 

Why are the books so popular. Isn't it just a made up world or something.

 

No no no... everything in the books is real. It's like a documentary.

 

I've never read the book and I saw the movie last night and loved it!

 

I've read the books, and I'll be seeing the movie tonight. I am apprehensive about whether I'll enjoy it or not. Hopefully it will change my mind.

 

My review:

Link to review


“Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” the beloved book by Douglas Adams, has taken almost three decades to wend its way to the silver screen. Fans wanted it. Studios wanted it. Even the late Mr. Adams himself, after shepherding the franchise to the stage, radio, and BBC television, spent years working on a screenplay.

Finally, after decades of preparation, after rejecting tons of would-be-directors, the powers that be found the perfect man to helm the film. The one name that viewers trust. The one name that says it all. They found Garth Jennings.

That sound you hear is Douglas Adams scratching his head from the grave. Garth Jennings? Prior to “Hitchhiker’s,” Jennings had directed exactly as many feature films as I had.

So given the sagging weight of these expectations, and given Jennings’ skimpy resume, it’s something of a minor miracle that “Hitchhiker’s” doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s almost great. With a breezy irreverence, and a gleeful appreciation of the absurd, “Hitchhiker’s” captures the wacky spirit of Douglas Adams, romping through the galaxy without a plot but with a towel. (Yes. A towel. You need a towel, any old bath towel, to travel in outer space. And if you don’t find that concept the least bit amusing, well, you might want to skip Adams’s logical-but-non-sensical brand of humor.)

As “Hitchhiker’s” opens, we learn that dolphins are actually creatures of superior intelligence, and that, for years, they’ve been trying to warn mankind of Planet Earth’s imminent destruction. In our arrogance, however, we mistook their cautions for simple circus acts, like bouncing a beech ball off their noses.

The end of the world is finally upon us, and the dolphins flee the doomed planet, but not before singing, in a joyous chorus, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!” It’s an inspired song and dance, a number that could stand toe-to-toe with any piece from “Spamalot.”

Before the world is destroyed, we meet Arthur Dent (“The Office’s” Martin Freeman), who wakes up to find bulldozers outside his house. Apparently the government needs to flatten his house to build a new expressway. Before he can fret too much about his house, though, he learns that his best friend, Ford, is actually an alien. In a casting decision that is truly outside the box, Ford is played by an earnest-looking, smiling Mos Def.

Ford tells Arthur what the dolphins have known for years: the world is about to be destroyed. Arthur barely comprehends the information, since he’s worried about his house, and he’s still hung up about a girl that he blew it with, Tricia (Zooey Deschanel). Jennings then inserts a clunky flashback to when Arthur met Tricia, which introduces the movie’s fundamental flaw: pacing.

In terms of pacing, and linear storytelling, “Hitchhiker’s” is all over the map. Just like the book. One minute the story is moving forward. Then we get a flashback. Or an animated entry from the titular Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which ruminates on, among other things, the cultural profile of the aliens “Vogons,” space travel, and the meaning of life.

Without the engine of a plot, “Hitchhiker’s” sustains our interest, tenuously, through sheer comic bravado. After the world is destroyed, Arthur finds himself with Ford in outer space. Jennings and screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick (working from a screenplay that Adams started before he died) nail the moment’s understated absurdity: after the planet’s obliteration, Ford asks Arthur if he “needs a hug.”

After a brush with the green-scaled, large-turtle-looking Vogons, who aren’t naturally hostile, simply very bureaucratic (it turns out that the world was accidentally destroyed by a paperwork mishap), Ford and Arthur hitchhike onto a stolen ship. There they meet the powerless president of the galaxy, Zaphod (Sam Rockwell), a mindless, fun-loving, roguish space cowboy. Arthur recognizes Zaphod from the party where he met Tricia, and, in a staggering coincidence, his mystery-lady is also onboard the ship.

The rest of the movie can just as easily be enjoyed watching the scenes in non-sequential order. In fact, it’s the first movie ever that would justify a “random” function on the DVD player. The foursome of Martin, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian (Tricia was given this new name by Zaphod, who thought it more “spacey”) pinball across the galaxy, encountering bizarre life-forms and stranger customs.

The movie is faithful. Sure, some hardcore fanboys will nitpick certain lines of dialogue, or bemoan the omission of a particular entry from the Guide, but no movie can be literally adapted from the page. And “Hitchhiker’s” has always been a fluid franchise; each incarnation, from book to stage to tv, has seen some subtle differences. Adams knew this, welcomed it, and even wrote a new character specifically for the movie, Humma Kavula (a legless John Malkovich).

Not everything works. The romance between Arthur and Trillian is bloodless, the special effects are borderline cartoonish, and the film’s resolution has some unwelcome sentimentality. But any movie that answers the meaning of life, well, that’s got to count for something.

Bring on “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.”

 

i seemed to find zaphod a lot funnier than most of the audience (and yes you could definitely see the dubya in him) and i found the robot a lot less funny than most of the audience. the romance seemed useless and i found the ending quite lame and there was about a 20 minute chunk of time where nothing seemed to happen and there weren't any good jokes. the first 50 minutes was pretty good though and fairly funny (though as i said in chat, the british seem to love the long, drawn out 30 second joke filled with britishy words that don't seem to end up going anywhere or get old by the time they hit the punchline). i suppose i would say go see it b/c mos def and rockwell were really good, but maybe only at matinee prices.