From The Back Row... The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
The arduous journey of getting The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy from radio to book to TV series would make a good movie. The sequel, where they attempt to make a film of it, would be an epic. It's taken years. It's changed directors, producers, studios and gone into and out of turnaround. For all I know it might have been eaten by a ravnous Bugblatter Beast from Traal along the way.
With that in mind, and being a fan from way back, I really really really wanted to like the Hitch-Hiker's movie a lot. Foolishly I had my hopes high that I wasn't going to be bitterly disappointed (I was already wary when I heard they'd renamed Marvin from "Paranoid Android" to "Depressed Robot"). I knew they'd made other changes (an American Ford Prefect, a differently dual-headed Zaphod) so was ever-so-slightly on my guard.
However all the previous incarnations of H2G2 have been different; it was to be expected that the movie wasn't not going to be EXACTLY the same as what has gone before wasn't it? The FX budget is considerably greater for a start. And there were Americans (!) involved.
So what works and what doesn't?
The new bipolar Zaphod is a nice idea (and Sam Rockwell = The Man) but Ford was a bit of a disappointment. Mos Def is a fine actor but he seemed out of sorts here, like he wasn't really sure what the hell was going on half the time. Zooey Deschanel is good as Trillian, despite them glossing over her astro-physicist credentials. Of course, both Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman acquit themselves well, though they're also a tad under-used.
The FX are excellent and, at 110 minutes long, the movie pretty much bumps along at a fair old pace. And there's singing dolphins, result! There's enough here to keep the casual observer engaged whilst there's enough fanboy-pleasing nods to (hopefully) keep the old guard happy; Magarathea is a big "wow", the cameos are used well, etc.
Unfortunately what there isn't enough of is laughs; all the gags you expect to hear have been pruned out, sometimes savagely, in order to speed the plot (such as it is) along. Also, whilst Martin Freeman was great in The Office, it would've been nice if they'd have given him a different character to play; the movie Arthur Dent bumbles his way through the movie, occasionally looking all doe-eyed, without the great sarcastic defence wit that his previous incarnations came armed with. This is a shame.
There's also a padded out middle section (as has been mentioned previously) that whilst entertaining, takes aaaaaaaaaaaaaages to move the story along. Still, it could've been worse I suppose (oh yes, it could've been much worse). I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it as much I wanted to (deep down it's what I expected).
All in all, it's worth watching if you're a fan or a newcomer to the universe of H2G2 (it's got singing dolphins for crying out loud) though I have to say it's probably best to cross your fingers and hope for extra scenes on the DVD version (in the meantime PLAY.COM are punting out the TV series for a bargain £12.99).
So, that's a mixed-up review for a mixed-up movie. H'mm, kind of fitting really I suppose.
7/10
With that in mind, and being a fan from way back, I really really really wanted to like the Hitch-Hiker's movie a lot. Foolishly I had my hopes high that I wasn't going to be bitterly disappointed (I was already wary when I heard they'd renamed Marvin from "Paranoid Android" to "Depressed Robot"). I knew they'd made other changes (an American Ford Prefect, a differently dual-headed Zaphod) so was ever-so-slightly on my guard.
However all the previous incarnations of H2G2 have been different; it was to be expected that the movie wasn't not going to be EXACTLY the same as what has gone before wasn't it? The FX budget is considerably greater for a start. And there were Americans (!) involved.
So what works and what doesn't?
The new bipolar Zaphod is a nice idea (and Sam Rockwell = The Man) but Ford was a bit of a disappointment. Mos Def is a fine actor but he seemed out of sorts here, like he wasn't really sure what the hell was going on half the time. Zooey Deschanel is good as Trillian, despite them glossing over her astro-physicist credentials. Of course, both Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman acquit themselves well, though they're also a tad under-used.
The FX are excellent and, at 110 minutes long, the movie pretty much bumps along at a fair old pace. And there's singing dolphins, result! There's enough here to keep the casual observer engaged whilst there's enough fanboy-pleasing nods to (hopefully) keep the old guard happy; Magarathea is a big "wow", the cameos are used well, etc.
Unfortunately what there isn't enough of is laughs; all the gags you expect to hear have been pruned out, sometimes savagely, in order to speed the plot (such as it is) along. Also, whilst Martin Freeman was great in The Office, it would've been nice if they'd have given him a different character to play; the movie Arthur Dent bumbles his way through the movie, occasionally looking all doe-eyed, without the great sarcastic defence wit that his previous incarnations came armed with. This is a shame.
There's also a padded out middle section (as has been mentioned previously) that whilst entertaining, takes aaaaaaaaaaaaaages to move the story along. Still, it could've been worse I suppose (oh yes, it could've been much worse). I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it as much I wanted to (deep down it's what I expected).
All in all, it's worth watching if you're a fan or a newcomer to the universe of H2G2 (it's got singing dolphins for crying out loud) though I have to say it's probably best to cross your fingers and hope for extra scenes on the DVD version (in the meantime PLAY.COM are punting out the TV series for a bargain £12.99).
So, that's a mixed-up review for a mixed-up movie. H'mm, kind of fitting really I suppose.
7/10
Comments