Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Directed by Garth Jennings
Review by Jim Eadon
2005
The novels of Douglas Adams are philosophical and can be
incredibly
funny in a congenially smart-ass fashion. The first three Hitchhikers
novels are iconic. The first Dirk Gently novel is fun too, though not
as piquant.
Lo! A Hitchhikers movie excitingly looms!
But... woe! I hear a lot of
negative press (in the UK) about Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - the
movie. Apparently Adams perpetually postponed the production of the
movie, unsatisfied with the script. Until the Grim Reaper called,
whilst he exerted himself on his exercise bike. It's an irony in
keeping with Adams' sense of the bizarre that he was slain by a machine
that exists to enhance health. To make matters worse, the Vogonesq
movie industry was free to plunder and emasculate his proud legacy.
Despite my better instincts, I watched the
movie out of a kind of
masochistic curiosity. It was a waste of money, and worse, my time. If
I were not familiar with the humour, warmth and finesse of Adams'
writing, then I might have found this movie *mostly harmless*. Instead
the experience was as vexatious as a ride in the Total Perspective
Vortex. The script took the gold of the source material and spewed out
dumb nonsense a notch more agonizing than Vogon poetry.
The score was crammed with aggravating little
comedy dittos that
screamed: this bit is jauntily funny, OK, got that, punk?
The TV series of Hitchhikers, produced by the
BBC many moons ago, was
superb, proving that Adams' writing can be incredibly funny
audiovisually. So there was no plausible artisan excuse for the abject
failure of this movie.
The train wreckage was strewn across all areas:
firstly but not
foremost, the special effects were uninspired and tacky, but not in a
way that worked: there was no Hitchhikers atmosphere, no sense of
wonder.
A more principal point is that the performance
of every single one of
the chief characters in this movie was dire. Conversely the TV series
nailed the characters as portrayed in the novels. Take Marvin the
Paranoid Android, he was unforgettable in the TV series, his morose
grumbling was knowing and wry. Here he was reduced to a white robot
baby. His moping was simply a creative non-entity.
Zaphod was portrayed with neither charm nor
presence. To show that this
wasn't just down to lousy acting but to misjudgement by the filmmakers,
the script kept having him verbally abused as Stupid, it reduced him to
a charmless fool. *Pangallactic Gargleblasters* to that! This approach
starkly illustrates how badly the filmmakers missed the entire point of
Zaphod's appeal and charisma, and the comic essence of Adams' creations
in general.
Then there was Arthur. I feared the worst upon
learning the casting of
Martin Freeman, who is unintentionally irritating in the comedy The
Office. The actor is reminiscent of a quietly smug schoolboy pretending
to be humble, even if he seems like a nice guy. Or probably because he
seems a nice guy and nothing more. And here he was as unfunny as ever.
Even straight men have to have comic timing.
Ford Prefect came over as a clown, which again
misses the essence of
the character. In the movie Ford had was not enigmatic, nor plausible:
I did not buy into his raison d'etre. Mos Def can't act, and raises the
ugly suspicion that he was cast for reasons of positive discrimination,
as the token ethic minority presence.
Slartybartfarst was presented as a kind of
underdog benevolent angel
character whose existence seemed to be to provide a Deus Ex Machina
exposition of the ensuing oversweet ending, which again, is not in the
book and for good reason.
Finally there was Trillian with her huge
gorgeous eyes. God her
presence irritated the hell out of me, for she was almost literally
unbearably cute in a non complementary sense. Her chemistry with Arthur
was as non-existent as her presence was nauseating.
The thing ended, thank the gods! At the start
of the credits the words
popped up: “to Douglas,” – an overly familiar tribute to a man who I
have little doubt would have LOATHED this foetid wreck, and doubly so
to have his name attached to it in such a ghastly and patronizing act
of shameless exploitation, nay, Treachery!
The chance of them turning a Universe as rich
as Adams' into a movie as
bad as this is one in 2 to the power of
1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. So the infinite
improbability machine must, against all odds, exist!
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spoilers corner
Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely
gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen
this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until
afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my
review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks
:-)
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No
spoilers, the movie is spoiled enough already.
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There are no more
spoilers below this point, except maybe in any user talkback comments.
End of spoilers
corner
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We dine on Hollywood's
force-fed liver in the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.
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| From: |
Russell | Subject: | 2006-05-21 13:41:33 |
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Mark Christie | Subject: | 2006-10-16 20:05:38 |
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