RETRO MOVIE REVIEW: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I have an admission: I have a lifelong love for Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I discovered the series with the old Infocom text game, and I still to this day have the “Don’t Panic” button that came with it. I own and have read all of the novels that Douglas Adams wrote; the game led me to the books. So when the big-screen version of Hitchhiker’s Guide came out, naturally I was eager to see it. Unfortunately, by then the timing was marred by the passing of Douglas Adams, a brilliant satirical writer who left a large impact on pop culture. He was also involved in the screenplay of this film, which although different from the books, was the basis for the final draft used in this version.

As a last work goes, Douglas Adams turns in a respectable one with this film. Some parts are legitimately brilliant—the opening sequence with the dolphins doing a dance routine with the “So Long and Thanks For All The Fish” song is outstanding and possibly the most memorable part of the movie. Other jokes don’t land as well, but the ideas behind them are intriguing, such as Zaphod’s political opponent (played by John Malkovich). The movie generally is faithful to the core elements of the book, including the destruction of Arthur Dent’s house to make room for a highway, the destruction of Earth to make room for an interstellar highway, Ford and Arthur’s first meeting with the Vogons, and the quest to the planet of Magrathea. At the same time, the script does take some liberties, and some of them work better than others. Making the Vogons the overarching villains works well enough, but other scenes don’t quite work as well (why can’t Ford use his Thumb to get back to the ship, for instance?). The romance between Arthur and Trillian is new to the film, though the Islington scene does go back to the novel, but the script manages to sell it for the purposes of the movie. There are moments in the film where Adams’ Doctor Who influences pop up as well (Adams was a writer and script editor for Who during the Fourth Doctor’s run), especially on the Vogon planet Vogsphere. But that gives the movie a British SF flavor that we don’t see enough in mainstream SF films.

The casting in this film is nothing short of fantastic, especially for the early 2000’s. Hitchhiker’s Guide was my first exposure to Martin Freeman, who excels at playing the English everyman hero. That persona has served him well on The Hobbit Trilogy and Sherlock, but it also makes him the perfect Arthur Dent. Sam Rockwell is better known for his work on Iron Man 2, but he does an excellent job as the charismatic and dim-witted Zaphod, and he brings a sense of fun to every scene he’s in. Zooey Deschanel is an actress I haven’t seen in many roles, but she’s perfectly solid in the role of Trillian. I didn’t sense much romantic chemistry between her and Freeman’s Arthur, but otherwise she’s good in the role. The only odd bit of casting of the main group is Mos Def as Ford Prefect, the alien travel writer for the Hitchhiker’s Guide, as I didn’t sense the character in his performance. But the supporting cast is outstanding as well—Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin is brilliant, Warwick Davis inhabits the robot body and makes the physical acting of Marvin work, Helen Mirren as Deep Thought is memorable, and Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast is another inspired choice. John Malkovich is always good at playing antagonists, which he does well here, and Stephen Fry plays the narrator of the Hitchhiker’s Guide with just the right tone. It’s not a perfect cast, but it’s overall a high-quality group of actors, including some British legends.

As much as I want to love this movie, there are some issues with it. Some elements of the script have a “made for Hollywood” flavor, as though Adams was aiming for the story to appeal to the classic Hollywood big budget narrative. The Arthur/Trillian romance arc shows this at times, though Adams does his best to make it work. The idea that Zaphod signed the order to destroy the Earth throws in an interesting complication, though if not for the fact that this series is largely comedic, it does cast Zaphod in a very bad light if you stop to think about the implications. The Vogons were never a major presence in the novel past that initial encounter, and yet it seems like they’re made into major villains because the film should have one. We also get the Bugblatter Beast of Traal teased, and yet we never actually see it in the movie; this strikes me as an unfortunate missed opportunity, especially with the classic gag about the Bugblatter Beast being fooled by wearing a towel over your head. In fairness, the Vogsphere scenes are generally quite good of the added scenes, especially when Adams writes about Vogon bureaucracy (something Adams has always lambasted hilariously). In the end, what makes Hitchhiker’s Guide a unique novel becomes a bit force-fit into the “Save the Cat” structure because that’s what works in Hollywood. Because of that, there are added elements that are interesting and others that undermine the narrative a little.

If I have any regrets about this film at all, it is that Douglas Adams didn’t live long enough to write a sequel. He clearly sets up The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by the end of the film, so likely he intended for that movie to happen. Unfortunate, but it’s perhaps for the best, given that I can’t see anyone else getting the voice of Douglas Adams down in quite the same way. Still, this is a perfectly good on-screen version of Adams’ most well-known book, and while not ideal, it’s enjoyable enough and grasps the spirit of what the novel accomplished. If you’re a fan of Adams or of the Hitchhiker’s series, you shouldn’t be disappointed by what this movie manages to achieve.

Score: 4/5

Director: Garth Jennings

Cast: Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel, Alan Rickman, Warwick Davis, John Malkovich, Bill Nighy, Anna Chancellor, Richard Griffiths, Helen Mirren, Stephen Fry, Thomas Lennon

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Steve Sellers

Steve Sellers had been a fan of superheroes ever since Superman: The Movie. But it took the JSA, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Dragonlance, Lord of the Rings, Twilight Zone, and Chris Claremont's legendary run on the X-Men to make him a writer and a longtime fan of comics, fantasy, and science fiction. Steve is the co-creator of WHITE DRUID & MICHAEL NERO and GUARDIANS OF ELAYIM for Omen Comics, and he is also the creator of BLITZ and SHOCKWAVE for Revelation Comics (an imprint of Omen Comics).