I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that there are at least a few fans of Adams among us, many of whom may be avoiding the potential misfire of this film version. Don’t; it’s well worth seeing, and amazingly good at capturing that precise Adams tone–somehow merging Spike Jones’ ceaseless ADD-led invention, Alec Guinness’ best sad-faced winsomeness, and Doctor Who’s ludicrous sci-fi noodling. (There: I wrote a cap review without mentioning Monty Python.)
I particularly loved the ‘throwaway’ bits–unlike an American counterpart, like “Airplane,” which spitfires punchlines, “Hitchhiker” offers up an endless array of wonderful set-ups. The movie’s best bits are an inventive stream of “guy walks into…” scenarios; who needs to play to the cheap seats with big yuks? From its opening credits, a bad ballad sung by dolphins, with a bad montage of jumping swimming chittering dolphins, you realize that the film is profoundly silly. Just like Adams.
When it gets “funny,” it loses a little luster. Sam Rockwell’s kind of fun, as George Bush. Mos Def is very fine, but subtle to the point of barely relevant for much of the movie. And Zooey Deschanel is about 1/3 as charming as in “All the Real Girls,” but that’s still pretty good. Even Martin Freeman–who’s good–doesn’t blow one away. Which is as it should be; the film (like the novel) is about supporting players, backgrounds, settings–the extras normally not visible in space opera. Bill Nighy walks in, late-movie, and steals the thing.
I got nothing much more to say than: it’s fun.
Finally saw this, and yeah – it worked. I can’t imagine how it could have been a whole lot better. I remembered that I was probably 12 or 13 when I reading the first 3 books, and I probably wouldn’t enjoy them as much now as then. Likewise, i’d like this movie a lot more if I was 12 now. It made me a little sad that Adams, dead at 49, wanted so badly to make the films, and that he died shortly before a series of many ridiculous things happened in the world that he would have hated/written about.
watched this as well on my long flight back from delhi. unlike “mr. and mrs. smith” (and “unleashed” and “the longest yard” which i also watched) i really liked this one. perfect airline movie. other movies that passed muster on the flight were “kicking and screaming”–i would say it is a minor will ferrell movie but all will ferrell movies are minor will ferrel movies (and the movie belongs to mike ditka anyway)–and “a lot like love” (though it is possible that the exhaustion and the bloody marys had something to do with this last one).
do we need a discussion of the in-flight movie genre?