Headed out with the gang to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I gotta say I loved it, with some caveats, but loved it. Read on for (a little bit) more with possible spoilers.
I loved a lot about the movie, the main one being Marvin. I think Alan Rickman completely stole the show as the voice of Marvin the Depressed Android, and I giggled and hit my leg pretty much any time he said anything. Aurthor Dent was played mostly right I think, he got “with it” a bit quicker than I imagined, Ford was not bad, not who I imagined, but he did the job well. Zaphod I didn’t like all that much.
Let me re-state that…. the actor played the part well, and the character he played was Zaphod-like, but didn’t “feel” like the right Zaphod. I’m sure they had a budget to worry about for the two heads thing, but I really didn’t like what they did with the one-under-the-other thing. Probably a hell of a lot easier to produce than a full fledged double headed guy with a major role in the film though 🙂
Also, Trillian wasn’t quite hot enough (thought Zooey Deschanel isn’t that bad, and after seeing her in the shower (not completely unfortunately) I felt a little better). Her acting at the beginning of the movie felt somewhat forced howver. Lots of elements were there, a few (most likely gobs) easter eggs (I saw a note at the end of the credits giving credit for the planet shaped like Douglas Adams’ head… watch for it! (the planet, not the credit)), the expected mice, dolphins (that damn song will be in my head all night), etc.
The story followed roughly how I remember, at least for the beginning. I’m sure I’d be horrified if I’d just finished the book how they diverged with some character played by John Malcovitch sending them off to get a gun (a character the imdb triva notes note was created for the movie by Adams himself), and basically I’m pretty sure the main plot points of the book were lost about 1/3 of the way in, but from the 10,000 mile view it wasn’t all that bad at all. Also the book wasn’t the same as the radio version which isn’t the same as the movie version so there.
They also had nice randomly interjected bits of info from The Book (voice by Stephen Fry, the dude whose been the voice in any HHGTTG production that’s had sound) to help move the plot along or explain less than 100% obvious bits. Sometimes it was a bit ponderous and urging the plot along, but most of the time it was sufficiently random and odd and funny.
In short, you could love the movie, or hate it, or not understand it, but my thoughts are you’ll most likely like it quite a lot, so go off and see it.