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Once, long ago, when I was working in a bookstore that shall remain nameless (although it rhymes with D. Balton), I, not being big on working very hard, was browsing through the stacks, looking for something simple to read - something that it wouldn't bother me getting interuppted by all those pesky customers. My choice was Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Simple it was, so simple in fact, that I never made it past page 105 or so (let alone to parts 2, 3, 4 or 5 of the ever increasingly poorly named trilogy).
Sure, there was some whimsical humour - sort of Monty Python without the intellegensia of it all - and that humour, in part at least, is not lost on the movie - although it is greatly truncated. The most blatant example is the literary idea of Galaxy President Zaphod Beeblebrox's split personality being shown in an extra, ridilin-needed second head, being slathered down to nothing but a CGI-implanted nonesense prank. The book, although far from great literature, is still a deeper read than this Hollywood version of the story (or at least part of the story - mostly full of half truths and mixed up chronologies). Not a bad movie, but just like the book I never finished, simple - too simple for it's great cast and even greater conceptual ideas.
As far as the acting goes, Mos Def and Sam Rockwell (as Ford Prefect and the aforementioned Pres. Beeblebrox, respectively) are engaging as always and the lovely and talented Zooey Deschanel (as Earthgirl Trillian) is, of course, alluring, although stuck in a somewhat lackluster role. Lead Martin Freeman (from the UK's The Office) is averagely acceptable as bewildered Brit Arthur Dent and Alan Rickman (as the voice of the massive-depressive robot Marvin) is cliche'd yet occaisionally humourous. The actual best performance goes to ten-minute scene stealer Bill Nighy (one of the few good things about Love Actually and Still Crazy - and brilliantly morose in last year's Shaun of the Dead) as Slartibartfast, an archetectual engineer and creator of planets.
The one thing this radio program/book/tv show/movie hybrid warns us not to do is panic. It's even printed on the cover of the titled book and is an intergalactic credo for any and all Hitchhikers - not to mention the legions of über fans whose fanaticism comes precariously close to that of Tolkienheads, although still nowhere near those Trekkies of legend and lore. Unfortunately for any of those fans watching this new Hollywoodization (aka bastardization) of their precious Petralogy, I don't think the panic button can be avoided. Sorry people of Earth - panic!!
- May 5, 2005
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