The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Movie Review

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I've never read Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy nor I knew that it even existed before I started reading casting news for the movie last year so forgive for not being excited at all about it, but one thing I was, I was happy, because I read last week that MJ Simpson, Adams' biographer and apparently book's biggest fan, watched the movie last week in a special screening and he hated it, and he actually wrote about it and trashed it from the start to the end credits, and so I immediately though that there was a chance then that by me not having read the book, but being a sci-fi lover, could end up loving the movie so much it would end up in my top ten of the year.

Well, I'm sad to report to that it wont end up in my top ten, and it would actually end up in my bottom ten if I would have been one of those excited about it. I wont be so critical about it as MJ Simpson, mostly because I haven't read the book like I've before and so I can't compare them, but I'll try to critic it enough so it shows my hate for the movie, yes hate.

The story is my biggest complain because it doesn't make any overall sense and it feels like they just put parts of the book that fans like (maybe not, according to MJ Simpson). Much of the book still was left out, I'm pretty sure, so I'm pretty surprised because Douglas Adams cowrote the movie with Karey Kirkpatrick (Garth Jennings directed), so it's weird that an author would put together a screenplay so that doesn't work at all compared to it's great source.

The beginning of the movie was good, It was clever and I liked it (though it'd been better with a shorter version of the dolphin song which went on and on), and then scene at the bar and Arthur's house being demolished, it was good. But I have a little complain here too, what was up with Arthur's introduction? Total copy of Shaun's in last year's instant classic Shaun of the Dead.
After that, many things happen, but nothing remarkable that was really good or worth commenting.

The characters didn't work for me either, very poorly written. Martin Freeman plays Arthur, and he is ok. I really liked him in Love Actually a few years ago but I was not impressed here. This is his first big role though so it's forgivable. Then Mos Def as Arthur's best friend though secretly not from this planet Ford Prefect. He is great at the beginning when saving Arthur but then becomes a towel-carrying character that does nothing besides carrying that towel and tell everybody to carry their towels, which is never fully explained btw, though I did get the idea.
My lovely Zooey Deschanel plays Trillian and she was wasted here. The character is not stupid or anything but she just has nothing to other than follow Arthur or Zaphod Beeblebrox, played by Sam Rockwell, which was by far my favorite character. Very energetic and charismatic and funny, but again, half into the movie it was just too much of him.

Then two other great actors wasted in very little roles: John Malkovich as Humma Kavula and Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast. I wanted a lot more of them.

Finally the voice work, starting with Marvin the depressed robot. I don't know how does it work in the book but while robots are usually great characters in the movies, this one isn't one. He just makes a comment every now and then, and it's supposed to be funny but is not. And other than that, Marvin is just useless. A big complain here because Alan Rickman voices Marvin, and is one of the worst voice works I've ever seen. Alan Rickman talks exactly like that all the time in all his movies. His voice really doesn't work for me here. Then Stephen Fry as the voice narrating the Guide. It's just too much narration and it makes it worse because most of the time it's about random stuff that is just not interesting or has nothing to do with the story of the characters.

So for me it badly written, and that took away any fun the movie could've had. And though I usually love Jim Henson's work with creatures, I didn't love them here, though maybe it's because I was not happy with the movie. I guess just didn't feel its magic.

Review by Hakeem