The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy review

2005.05.04 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Reviews | by Andrew Cole

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy does not have an extensive pedigree. Writer Kerry Kirkpatrick has had only marginal success with children's movies like James and the Giant Peach and Chicken Run (better not to mention The Little Vampire— Oops, sorry!). And director Garth Jennings is fresh off the bus from directing music videos. All two of 'em. This sounds more like the crew you'd line up to produce The Little Vampire 2: The Return of the Little Vampire. But then there is Douglas Adams....

Douglas Adams is one of the great British comedy writers*, a sort of honorary-Python and the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (of five books). Adams's books (and, to some degree, the radio and television versions) form the backbone of the film, altho with great artistic license.

The movie imposes a kind of linear narrative that the books never cared for. Part of the point of Arthur Dent's wandering aimlessly thru the galaxy was that he was wandering aimlessly, an activity he was profoundly uncomfortable with. He was, after all, English.

I am not the sort of person who wails about how "the movie isn't as good as the book." I love both enough to know that they are different and have to take a different approach to the subject. This movie does a good, if not great, job of capturing the humor, whimsy, and dramatic themes of the novels.

The plot concerns poor Arthur, played by Martin Freeman of The Office, discovering that first his house and then his planet (Earth) is about to be demolished (both for the same reason, ironically). He is saved by his odd friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), who turns out to be an alien writer for the popular book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a kind of snarky encyclopedia. They escape Earth and its destructors only to fall in with runaway president of the galaxy Zaphod (Sam Rockwell) and his girlfriend Trillian (Zooey Deschanel). Oh, and a paranoid and depressed robot named Marvin (Alan Rickman).

I've said before that I don't like Americans playing roles that ought to be reserved for Europeans. Ford Prefect, altho not really English, is pretending to be from England and is even named for a British car. Mos Def, while certainly def, is not English but Brooklynian.

This troupe embarks on an adventure—and here is where the narrative jumps from book one to book three—to discover the question of life, the universe, and everything (the answer, as everybody already knows, is 42). Along the way, they struggle with highly improbable events (improbability powers their ship) such as briefly turning into yarn dolls.

The acting is fine thruout, particularly from Freeman and Rockwell, who plays the vapid rock-star president with life-of-the-party flair. It is a character that seems inherently unlikable, but Rockwell makes us like him anyway, at least for as long as the party lasts. He is at odds with Arthur immediately, tho, because he snatched Trillian away from Arthur at a party once just as they were hitting it off.

The movie strikes a sour note here, tho, plunging Arthur madly in love (and consequently turning itself into a romance) with no real grounds for it. He and Trillian hardly knew each other. In fact, he had never seen her out of her Charles Darwin costume (yes, you read that right).

Small supporting roles by John Malkovitch and Bill Nighy brighten the film, and a cameo by the television Arthur Dent, Simon Jones, is welcome (he's the forboding holographic head that launches two nuclear missiles at our heroes). Helen Mirren does a classy turn as the voice of the megacomputer Deep Thought. And Stephen Fry as the Guide narrator is no less than marvelous.

However, I am about to complain that once again the female lead is not given much to do in a big adventure movie. Here I go: Trillian is not really given much to do in the story. That's not all bad, I suppose, because Zooey Deschanel has yet to find a classical acting class that fits into her busy movie-making schedule. She's likeable and pretty, just, you know, not especially good at her job. She has a nice turn when she gets her hands on a gun that makes other people see her point of view, but even then Sam Rockwell is doing the heavy lifting.

This is a subtle bit of social commentary from Adams; after all, don't all guns make the people you point them at see your point of view?

Before I go further, let me say that there is some wonderfully funny stuff in Hitchhiker's Guide: the hideous Vogons and their bureaucratic approach to law enforcement, the mind-bending special effects of the planet that builds other planets, and some really knee-slapping physical gags.

Most of the good stuff comes either from the books or from the physical acting of the principals, but a good bit is added by the screenplay writers. There are moments that I thought should have been taken further for best effect (during the idea-slapping scene, why wasn't Marvin being continuously, but stoically, slapped? Why were the Vogons so non-bureaucratic about some things?) But overall, the film does a very good job of bringing the universe of Douglas Adams to life.

Strangely, the filmmakers add a very non-Adamsian conclusion, a kind of TV sitcom ending, where all is well again in spite of itself. Adams had a respect for continuity—not to mention theme. When Douglas Adams blew up the Earth, it stayed blown up.

* Other great British comedy writers:

• William Shakespeare
• Charles Dickens
• PG Wodehouse
• Richard Curtis & Ben Elton (together only)
• Monty Python's Flying Circus (together only)

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