Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie Review

(minor spoiler alert)

If you're hoping that this movie will faithfully re-create any one of the previous versions (radio, book, or tv) of the Hitchhiker's Guide, you probably won't like this movie. It is as different to them as the radio version and the book version are to each other. It seems that Mr. Adams liked to re-invent the story in each of its incarnations.

I had read all five of the books before I even knew that the earlier (BBC?) radio broadcasts existed. When I finally heard them, it seemed to me like he had cut the scenes of the book into jigsaw pieces, thrown away half of them, scrambled the rest in with a smaller puzzle, hammered all the pieces together, and traced over that to make a new picture which was wildly different yet familiar. I got the exact same sensation when I saw the movie, and again, I enjoyed the results.

In making those kinds of drastic changes, he and the filmmakers have succeeded in keeping the wacky spirit of the story alive. They have made it accessible to modern audiences who have no knowledge of the strange universe(s) that Mr. Adams created, and added fresh and funny surprises for the diehard fans. There are plentiful "inside jokes" that only we could pick up (example: the statue in the church entryway), and numerous new ideas (whack!) that only Mr. Adams could dream up.

The movie did seem to start a little slowly and unevenly, but part of that feeling could have been me noticing the many changes and fearing two hours of major disappointment. As it turned out, my only real disappointment was that Zaphod didn't get to keep his second head and third arm. Although not 'Oscar quality', all of the actors did quite well in their characters, and seemed to fit in with the other elements of the movie. Together they made a wonderfully campy and absurd whole, which I suspect would please the late Mr. Adams.