Mostly Harmless.


As I said in my Two Towers review, assessing films I’ve been eagerly anticipating since I was ten years old, such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, can be tough going after only one viewing. And I expect I’ll be popping back into the HHGTTG-verse sometime in the next few days to see how it hangs together after a second go-round. But, for now, I’ll say that I enjoyed much of the Guide…with some reservations. If anything, the experience reminded me of the first X-Men — everybody looks and acts right, and there are several really great moments, but I also wish Hitchhiker’s had spent more time letting the characters be themselves and less time trying to shoe-horn Hollywood-style plot devices into the narrative. (Spoilers to follow)

First, the good, and there’s a lot of good here. I have a feeling people who haven’t read the books are going to be completely lost in very short order, but I kinda liked how quickly the movie got off Earth, without lingering on all the Mr. Prosser stuff. I also enjoyed the numerous Adamsian digressions and visual flourishes throughout, particularly those revolving around The Guide and the Infinite Improbability Drive. (Ok, the bowl of petunias was a mite overdone, and Deep Thought could’ve been funnier, but string-vision was a marvel.) Some of the new stuff worked splendidly, most notably the Malkovich detour. (Others, less so, such as the POV-gun.) I loved the creature designs — not only the Vogons but all the random lo-fi denizens in the queue at Vogsphere.

The central characters are all solid too, I’d say. While Martin Freeman is a bit more frantic than I would have liked — I always envisioned Arthur to be more resigned, laconic, and stiff-upper-lip in the face of all these hypergalactic indignities — Mos Def’s Ford and Sam Rockwell’s Zaphod are pretty much pitch-perfect. Mos Def steals a number of the early scenes, and it’s too bad he kinda falls out of the movie in the second half. And every time I thought Rockwell’s Zaphod was starting to get old, he’d pull out another rock-star-pose or goofy line reading that’d rehabilitate him in my mind. (Alas, Marvin, for his part, isn’t given very much to do…but what did you expect? Everyone always forgets about the androids and their feelings.)

And Trillian? Well, it’s not Zooey Deschanel’s fault — she’s fine, if a bit bland. But for some ghastly reason, either Douglas Adams or his scriptwriting successors made the decision to try and put an Arthur-Trillian romance front-and-center. And it just doesn’t work. From very early on, when we see Arthur and Tricia’s first meeting in flashback, throughout the rest of the film, it’s all, well, fluff. Trillian’s gratuitous shower scene (I kid you not) and the POV-gun stuff end up being bad enough, but when Arthur professes his love for her to the buzzsaw-wielding mice on Earth-2, I found my fingers itching to press the nearest big improbability-eject button.

Arthur and Trillian aside, the film also goes curiously flat at times, particularly once the crew hits Magrathea. In fact, everything that occurs on Earth-2, and particularly the Vogon Shoot-out, seems both lifeless and another rather lame concession to Hollywood plot dynamics. It’s strange, because for the most part, like LotR, Hitchhiker’s feels like a movie by fans for fans. But for one reason or another, it loses its footing in the final reel.

Despite these sizable lapses, though, my thumb is still cocked in the upward direction (That is, if you know what you’re getting into — I’m very curious to discover if non-readers can even make head-or-tail of this film.) Like I said, Hitchhiker’s feels a lot like the first X-Men to me – promising but flawed. Here’s hoping, now that we’ve been introduced to everybody and finished the origin-story, so to speak, that Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian, and Marvin will get more of a chance to cut loose in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.Update: Ok, after a second viewing, I thought it held together less well. And the score is, well, both terribly distracting and not very good. But, I’d still be up for Restaurant.

Pardon me for breathing.

Attention, People of Earth: Touchstone releases eight character-specific and guide-themed posters for Hitchhiker’s. Also, some of y’all might have seen this extremely negative first review of the film over at Metafilter. Well, I’d take it with a grain of salt. Not only does this guy seem Marvin-like in the extreme, he has a nasty purist streak that rivals those of the most-impossible-to-satisfy Tolkien fans. At least in this corner, the jury’s still out.

Zarquon!

Clever, clever…UGO obtains the rumored new Internet-only and Guide-centric Hitchhiker’s trailer. It mostly conforms to the earlier one, but still, it’s nice to finally hear Stephen Fry, as well as Alan Rickman as Marvin.

One of those Days.

Attention, People of Earth…I had a devil of a time downloading it at first, but nevertheless, a 95%-complete version of the long-awaited Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trailer is now online. I’m really looking forward to seeing this on the big-screen — all the characters look great (sass these hoopy froods), and right now I’m definitely digging the DIY, low-fi aesthetic — that Away-Team moment at the end (on Magrathea, presumably) looks like it could’ve been taken right out of an old Doctor Who or Blake’s 7. Update: It’s now up at the official site.

Don’t Panic!

This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but…Vogon poetry? The brief teaser for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, rumored since Comicon, is now freely available online. Be sure to check out the production slideshow, which shows off the splendid designs of Marvin the Paranoid Android and the Heart of Gold. Oh, and don’t forget your towel. Update: More production art here.

The Prophet of No Tea.

The cast of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy rounds out with John Malkovich as a “religious cult leader called Humma Kavula, created by the late author especially for the long-gestating film.” Hmm, strange. In case you missed earlier reports, the cast also includes The Office‘s Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Sam Rockwell as Zaphod, and Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. Should be better than Vogon poetry, at any rate.