HAMSTER RATING

STARRING: Mos Def (Ford Prefect [Left Ear, The Italian Job]), Martin Freeman (Arthur Dent [Declan, Shaun of the Dead]), Zooey Deschanel (Trillian [Jovie, Elf]), Sam Rockwell (Zaphod Beeblebrox [Guy, Galaxy Quest]), Warwick Davis (Marvin [Willow, Willow]), Alan Rickman (voice of Marvin [Prof. Snape, the Harry Potter movies]), Bill Nighy (Slartibartfast [Phil, Shaun of the Dead,]), John Malkovich (Humma Kavula [John Horatio Malkovich, Being John Malkovich])

SYNOPSIS: Dull, ordinary Arthur Dent is whisked away by his alien pal Ford Prefect minutes before the destruction of Earth to make way for a hyperspace route. Meeting the singular person of Zaphod Beeblebrox and one-time flame Trillian, the quartet (along with depressed robot Marvin) embarks on a quest to discover the answer to life, the universe, and everything (it’s 42, but that’s hardly helpful since nobody knows exactly what the question is).

"It's still following us, Ford! Geez, I told ya not to feed it!"

TO THOSE already acquainted with late author Douglas Adams’ universe of Babel fish, improbability drives and super intelligent mice, the big-screen realization of the first of his five novels is a spot-on, smashing good time. The gags come thick and fast, the visuals are amazing and there’s even a catchy tune with the refrain, “So long and thanks for all the fish!” (Which is the title of the fourth book in Adams’ series). Considering Adams himself penned the screenplay, it should come as no surprise that the movie is delightfully faithful to the book, including the stop-and-go pacing.

For people new to the Hitchhiker’s Guide, however, the film’s faithfulness to its source material might have more than a few of them struggling to take the guide’s advice of “Don’t panic!” The Guide to the Galaxy is like a sci-fi action flick on speed, with a bunch of characters that drop in with little or no exposition and a plot that could quickly leave you stranded on one of its oddball planets if you aren’t paying attention. There are plenty of visual treats, but a lot of the humour is in the dialogue, as well, so trying to pay attention to everything at once in the zany, two-hour film can become exhausting. For anybody trying to turn a novel into a movie, the main task always boils down to deciding what to include in the story and what to skip over, because film simply can’t accommodate the wealth of content that a book gets to explore. In the Guide’s case, this is a movie that is just begging to be sequeled, not so much because of the cash cow it could be or to resolve the incomplete story line it has, but because Adams has thrown so much oddness at you that you need another movie to understand it all without your head exploding.

No one was terribly surprised by the quick cancellation of this final Power Rangers spin-off.

The biggest draw here for fans of the series is to finally get to see all the characters and places brought to life, and the movie does a spectacular job at that. Incorporating both large-scale CGI and fantastic costuming (courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop), the audience is treated to some absolutely stunning post-production work, including a sweeping trip through the factory floor of a company that custom-builds planets. In another memorable sequence, the improbability drive turns everyone into stop-motion yarn dolls, demonstrating the same freedom to mix mediums that Quentin Tarantino did with Kill Bill.

The other shining achievement is the casting. Martin Freeman captures Arthur Dent’s hesitant, tea-craving Everyman without straying too far into peevishness, and thanks to some movie-land plot devices, manages to come out a serviceable hero in the end. Mos Def is highly entertaining as the calm-headed and quirky Ford Prefect, but he doesn’t get much of a chance to build on his character. Sam Rockwell, on the other hand, is nothing but hysterically funny as Zaphod Beeblebrox, particularly when Ford Prefect equips him with a lemon-powered thinking cap. Rockwell’s idiosyncratic performance is a huge treat, since the Beeblebrox character isn’t nearly so entertaining in the books. Alan Rickman has the perfect voice for the mopey Marvin, and Warwick Davis displays surprising agility in the hideously ill-proportioned costume.

Trillian’s character is probably the most re-worked out of all of them to serve the needs of the romantic subplot, and Deschanel does the job relatively well, but since she ends up playing the straight man to the oddball male trio of Prefect, Dent and Beeblebrox, her contribution to the story is largely overshadowed.

"Yes, I'd like the Gas Giant combo to go, with an asteroid belt on the side..."

A final acting nod goes to Bill Nighy, who puts in a wonderfully understated turn as Slartibartfast. His dry, nuanced characterization of the self-effacing planet engineer is brought out in very few scenes and with dialogue that is largely narrative in nature. It just goes to show the quality results you can get with real talent and experience. More impressive to me, though, is the fact that this film is director Garth Jennings’s first big job with Hollywood. His previous directorial efforts were music videos and short films. On that front, Guide is incredibly well made, considering the ambitious scope of tackling Adams’ work.

To sum it all up, if you’ve read the books and are a fan of Adams’ wacky universe and British humour, then The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy should be quite enjoyable. It not only offers all of the series’ classic lines and inside jokes, but also some new “easter eggs” that Adams threw into the screenplay that enrich his satirical universe even further. The combination had me so delighted that I was laughing like an idiot start to finish. But then, I’m a geekoid fan of the series. For the uninitiated, I don’t know that the movie will have quite the same sparkle and charm, especially since so many of the jokes are more verbal and “witty” than American audiences might be accustomed to. There’s also a feeling of incompleteness about it since the ending is wide open for a sequel. But there’s physical humour aplenty and every scene is so packed with madcap things to see and hear that even if you have no idea what’s going on, you should find something to amuse you. And really, who wouldn’t find the sight of John Malkovich praying to a Great White Handkerchief worth a chuckle? All in all, The Hitchhiker’s Guide is an overstuffed, completely silly popcorn movie that’s good as an evening out, but due to the dizzying complexity of the source material, probably works best as tutorial for the book series.