It was with mixed feelings that I approached the movie adaptation of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy back in 2005. Primarily, I was concerned the producers would f#*k up my favorite book; its quirky, very English with some of the most amusing and perfectly formed sentences commited to paper. On the positive front, the film was produced by Jay Roach, a talented comedy film-maker, had a decent hollywood budget and was co-written by the book's author, the late Douglas Adams.
The result, while not perfect, was at least a satisfactory adaptation. The biggest obstacle the movie had to overcome to achieve production status, was to appeal to a large contemporary international audience. See Hitch-Hiker's is a very, very English affair; the humour is both Monty Python daft and drier than all the hosts of 'Have I Got News For You' combined.
The cast are variable. Zooey Deschenel is adorable as Trillion, Mos Def makes for unexpected, but spot-on casting while Alan rickman doesn't come off as well as the voice of Marvin the paranoid android, as Stephen Moore did in the radio play. Martin Freeman is adequete in the lead role of Arthur Dent...but his modern interpretation of the stubbornly middle-class englishman from the book drains a lot of the humor's sharpness. Standing head over heals above everybody is Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox. He perfectly capture the stellar arrogance, stupidity and zest for trouble that embodies the rock-star persona of the President of the Universe.
The film-makers make good choices in the designs from Jim Henson's globular Vogons, the spaceship Heart of Gold and Deep Thought...the second most powerful computer ever. There's a definete Terry Gillian vibe which does the movie no harm at all.
Where it falls down is where it varies from the book. The detour to meet John Malkovich, whilw weird and never dull, slows down the story and detracts from the laughs. Whenever it's being faithful, such as Stephen Fry's beautifully timed passages from the Hitch Hikers Guide, it's stunning.
So not bad, but not great. Perhaps it needed a bigger budget (they kinda cheat Zaphod outta his second head) and bigger balls. The opening sequence, involving a musical number sung by dolphins, is a bizarre creative choice that puts a grin on the face. Then again given the quirky nature of the material, it's a miracle the movie got made at all.
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