'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy': Fans deserved better

By PHIL KLOER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It's tough to tell who will be crankier about "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when they leave the theater. Fans of the revered cult sci-fi parody by the late Douglas Adams will be wondering "How could they?," while folks who just wandered in on a whim will be thinking "What was that?"

Touchstone Pictures

'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'

C-

The verdict: Thumb down.

Director: Garth Jennings
Starring: Bill Bailey, Anna Chancellor, Warwick Davis, Martin Freeman, John Malkovich
Run time: 110 minutes
Release date: April 29, 2005
Rating: PG for thematic elements, action and mild language.
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"H2G2," as it's abbreviated, is one of those tone-deaf adaptations where they use the characters, parts of the plot and even some words from a famous book, and create something that feels nothing remotely like the book. It's as dreadfully off-key as David Lynch's "Dune" or Brian De Palma's "Bonfire of the Vanities" — a movie that's constantly smacking you in the side of the head when it's supposed to be whispering in your ear.

Adams' "H2G2" saga (it's been a series of books, a radio production and a BBC TV series) is a sort of Monty Python in outer space, a loose sojourn through the universe in search of the meaning of life, with lots of wry jokes, bizarre characters, improbable plot devices, and to top it all off, a wackier early version of the basic idea that later drove "The Matrix." (You know, this isn't really reality, we're all just unwitting players in somebody else's ginormous computer simulation.)

The space travelers include Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), a dim Englishman who escapes Earth just before it's blown up to make way for a hyperspatial express route; Ford Prefect (Mos Def), a cool alien who's one of the writers of the guidebook of the title; Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), two-headed president of the Galaxy, now on the lam in a stolen spaceship; and Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), the only other survivor of the end of the world.

OK, let's pretend that "H2G2" isn't based on a classic, and evaluate it based solely on its own merits. Nope, still doesn't work.

The whole thing feels patched together, as if sections were overseen by different directors. There's no chemistry at all among the leads, who seem to be acting in different movies. Rockwell is a cartoon, outrageously over the top, while Def is a charisma vacuum who barely registers. Deschanel seems anxiously aware the whole project is going down the tubes (don't panic, Zooey!), and Freeman is just sort of along for the ride. Which, come to think of it, describes Arthur Dent, so maybe there's some brilliant Method at work here.

The parts that work are the parts that are purest Adams, the Pythonesque bits that are the real reason this story from the late '70s still attracts new fans every year. (It was eventually a five-book "trilogy" — typical Adams.) The religion that believes that the Big Bang was God blowing his nose, and who now wait for the coming of the Great White Handkerchief; the super-computer that discerns that the answer to the meaning of life is 42; the hideously ugly alien Vogons, who live for their even more hideous poetry readings. Also coming through relatively unscathed are Marvin the Paranoid Android and the semi-God-like Slartibartfast (a puckish Bill Nighy, the only actor here who seems to really get Adams).

But even though bits of Adams survive the transfer, he deserved better, as do his fans. Although Adams worked on the screenplay before he died (in 2001 at age 49 of a heart attack), Disney gave the unfinished script to Karey Kirkpatrick, best-known for writing the movie "Chicken Run," then turned the script over to music video director Garth Jennings, who had never directed a major film.

In "H2G2," Dent repeatedly visits a vending machine on a spaceship seeking a nice cup of tea, and receives instead "a beverage that tasted almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea." "Hitchhiker" feels almost, but not quite, entirely unlike what it could have been.