The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a movie that a lot of people have been looking forward to for a long time. the series of novels has been celebrated as fantastic works of fiction and caused a lot of hype to be put on the release of this film. so how does it stack up? does it live up to the books and will it stand the test of time as they have? eh, probably not.

The Plot (warning spoilers abound in this part):

Poor Arthur Dent, he's really not having that great of a day. he's got his mind on the girl that got away. his house is about to be destroyed to make way for a road, and his friend Ford Perfect decides to tell him that he's an alien. wait...wwwhhhaaaaaa? yeah all this happens before lunch too. before Arthur can say "hey i remember that time you wanted to have a probe party..." some demolition ships land and tell all of us Earth citizens that the planet is scheduled for demolition to make way for a hyperspace expressway. Arthur and Ford barely have time to hitchhike off the planet before Earth goes the way of...some planet that has been blown up before to make way for a hyperspace expressway......

what follows is a trek across the galaxy that involves a stolen ship, a rather crazy john malcovich, a manic depressive robot, and the search for the ultimate question in the universe. the plot never really seems to disappoint, although not reading the novels before hand i can't say that it sticks close. the plot does draw out my biggest criticism of the movie though. the love story. we're supposed to believe that arthur and his girl (named trillian, i was giggling at the thought that she was named after my messaging program too) fall in love after only about 20 minutes of interaction time on screen? while both martin freeman and zooey deschanel function fine on their own, pairing them together as perspective members of a relationships comes off as really wooden and unnecessary. you could have easily skipped that part of the movie and been completely happy. granted the love story isn't the biggest part of the movie, but it's the part i had the biggest problem with.

the acting:

most of the acting is above average here. you've got martin freeman (the guy from the office tv show and love actually). who's got one of the best "what the f$#%" faces i've seen. he really brings across the fact that he has no idea what the hell is going on. and really fits well despite my comment about the love story. zooey deschanel (the blonde girl from elf) isn't so lucky. since the majority of her interactions with the characters almost completely revolve around the love story i wasn't really a fan of her in this movie. her dry humor works some of the time, but not enough to make her a good choice for the role. sam rockwell impresses as the president of the galaxy ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX (he would have wanted it capitalized), constantly making the audience bounce between hating him for being such a jackass. and at the same time not minding it because he's just dumb enough to put the thought in your mind that maybe he doesn't know what he's doing. rounding out the main cast is mos def, who really suprised me in this movie. he did an excellent job of bringing ford perfect to life. having not seen his screen or stage work before i was a little skeptical being that he comes from that "rapper turned actor" crowd. man was i wrong. he brings on of the best performances of the film. it's worth mentioning too that both alan rickman (the voice of marvin the depressed robot) and stephen fry (the narrator and the voice of the guide itself) did really good jobs as well. they both bring their characters to life and in marvins case rickman keeps the character whinny but still likeable enough that he doesn't become annoying. plus marvins solution to the alien problem at the end worth seeing.

the visuals:

nothing in this film really stands out except for one thing. the improbability drive (what the stolen ship uses to jump the characters across space) turns who ever is in the ship into any random object for a short time after they come back into normal space. this produces some of the best visual gags in the movie, and the best on screen vomiting i've seen in a movie....ever. the CGI is well done and works with the film well. and the sets are all very good at complimenting the story. there really isn't any camera work or visiual effects in general that really push the movie in any way. this movie may not have set out to do that, but something about how bland a lot of the scenes were shot kind got to me. nothing in this area works against the film, but it made me walk out of the theater going "eh" instead of going "wow that was really cool". which is what a film like this is supposed to do.

overall:

i liked The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, just not a lot. there are enough memorable performances and on the ball humor to make it worth seeing. though i don't know if it's worth eight bucks and popcorn. rent it defiantly, but only really see it if star wars is sold out and you absolutely need to sit in a theater for an hour and a half. oh and if anyone knows where i can find myself a marvin robot that'd be really cool.....i give it a B-

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