So I finally made it out to see the Hitchhiker's Guide movie at the fabulous Cinerama, a theater that fully deserves the "rama" after its name. (Tangentially, I'm pretty sure that everything in life is better with "o-rama" after it's name.)
This review is easy on the spoilers, but will ultimately encourage you to go out and give it a shot. If you want to be completely surprised (She's a guy! Vader is Luke's father!), you probably shouldn't read this.
Anyway, I've been hearing some pretty grim stuff. "Terrible," declared my brother, and others had told me that it was an abuse of the material. A widely-circulated story accused it of having no sense of timing. But in the same way that I'll see Episode III, like it or not, because there are some bits of childhood that just have to be watched. Somehow, I heard just enough about I, Robot to miss that one. Fortunately.
Maybe my expectations were too low. Maybe I was replaying a different movie in my head. But I really liked it--which surprised me, because I'm all too often a purist about stuff. It can't possibly be the same thing as the books, or the TV show, or the radio series (all of which I, to variable extents, loved), much less the computer game (not so loved). That's partially because, well, the various series aren't consistent.
The best of the jokes recur between series. The same places are seen again and again, in various places, and the core characters are fairly consistent. But except for that, it's a fairly wild ride, and new bits come pretty much out of nowhere in the various episodes.
The movie is true to that eclectic schema. It has a new theme song (a big musical number!), a newly expanded role for Vogons, a vague love theme (yeah, it's Hollywood) and a desperate attempt to make the movie hang together in some sort of logical sequence that doesn't depend on fortuitous explosions or the deus ex machina that is the infinite improbability drive.
Speaking of which, the work with the Drive is very possibly some of the most inspired in the movie. It is, indeed, rather Improbable. And involves sock monkeys, once, and generally gives the sense that the drive works on principles of physics that are just plain weird.
The actors all get it. Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman) is an inspired selection, as is Mos Def (as a truly brilliant Ford). Zaphod, played by Sam Rockwell, is the President of the Galaxy played as a current President of the US, and is rolling-on-the-floor funny.
In general, the look and feel of the movie is nicely crisp. It is a Major Hollywood Production, which is both good and bad, with clever things like "Set Design" and "Special Effects" (which were both largely beyond the original BBC TV production). The cleverest bit of the old BBC series was the hand-drawn "computer displays" from the Guide; the new version pays respectful homage to its retro look while taking into account the existence of the iPod, contemporary visual design, and a 90s aesthetic. Deep Thought is, I think, a giant TiVo, which was a profound decision.
That said, it's not perfect. Some parts make very little sense, even for this movie (what's with the weird John Malkovitch scene?). Periodically, the silliness seems to overwhelm even the movie, which staggers and reorients.
Obsessive fans will love the Star Wars reference, the fluid and free invocation of British TV history, and the various cameos: look for Douglas Adams' face, the original Marvin from the TV series. New fans will watch as it flies by, and will get about two-thirds of the jokes-- but will probably enjoy the whole. Lord of the Rings it isn't--we won't see entire airplanes filled with giggling Hitchhiker's readers--but it's a good shot for what it is.
Oh, and stick around through the credits.
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This movie has been rated with 3.5 stars on the Classic Hitchhiker's Quote List Scale:
1* And me, with a pain in all the diodes down my left side ..
2* Hey, is this guy boring you? I'm from another planet!
3* In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men and women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
4* Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.