The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Movie Review
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'Galaxy' wit may confuse novices
Information technology is possible that "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" should only be reviewed by, and mayhap only be seen by, people who are familiar with the original material to the point of obsession. My good friend Andy Ihnatko is such a person, and considered the late Douglas Adams to be 1 of only three or four people worthy to be mentioned in the aforementioned breath as P.G. Wodehouse. Adams may in fact have been the simply worthy person.
Such a Hitchhiker Chief would be able to review this film in terms of its in-jokes, its references to various generations of the Guide universe, its before manifestations equally books, radio shows, a TV series and the center of a matrix of Spider web sites. He would understand what the filmmakers have washed with Adams' cloth, and how, and why, and whether the film is true-blue to the spirit of the original.
I cannot address any of those problems, and I would rather plead ignorance than pretend to knowledge. If you're familiar with the Adams material, I suggest you stop reading right now earlier I disappoint or fifty-fifty anger you. All I can exercise is speak to others like myself, who will be arriving at the moving picture innocent of Hitchhiker noesis. To such a person, 2 things are possible if you see the picture:
1. You will get intrigued by its whimsical and quirky sense of humor, understand that a familiarity with the books is necessary, read i of more of the Hitchhiker books, return to the flick, capeesh information technology more, and eventually be absorbed into the legion of Adams admirers.
ii. You volition detect the movie tiresomely twee, and observe that it obviously thinks information technology is being funny at times when you exercise not take the slightest clue why that should exist. You lot will sense a sure desperation as actors try to sustain a tone that belongs on the page and not on the screen. And you will hear dialogue that preserves the content of written humor at the cost of sounding as if the characters are holding a Douglas Adams reading.
I take the second choice. The movie does not inspire me to learn lots more well-nigh The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, The Salmon of Doubt, and then on. Like "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," but with much less visual amuse, it is a conceit with picayune to exist conceited nigh.
The story involves Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), for whom ane day there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that Earth is beingness destroyed to build an intergalactic thruway, which will run correct through his house. The good news is that his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def) is an alien temporarily visiting Globe to exercise research for a series of Hitchhiker's Guides, and can apply his magic ring to axle both of them up to a vast spaceship operated by the Vogons, an alien race that looks similar a cross between Jabba the Hutt and Harold Flower. The Vogons are not a cruel race, apart from the fact that they insist on reading their poetry, which is then bad information technology has driven people to catatonia.
Once aboard this ship, Arthur and Ford are hitchhikers themselves, and rapidly transfer to another ship named the Center of Gold, allowable by the Galaxy's president Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), who has a third arm that keeps emerging from his tunic like the curtained arm of a samurai warrior, with the proviso that a samurai conceals 2 arms at the most. Zaphod is ii-faced in a almost intriguing way. Also on the ship are Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), an earthling, and Marvin the Android (body by Warwick Davis, voice past Alan Rickman), who is a terminal kvetcher. There is too a part for John Malkovich, who has a human trunk and a lower torso patently made from spindly robotic cranes' legs; this makes him a wonder to behold, up to a point.
What these characters practise is non as important as what they say, how they say it, and what it will mean to Douglas Adams fans. To me it got old fairly quickly. The movie was more than of a revue than a narrative, more about moments than an organizing purpose, and cute to the point that I yearned for some corrosive wit from its 2nd cousin, the Monty Python universe. But of course I practise not get the joke. I do not much desire to get the joke, but maybe yous will. It is not an evil moving picture. It wants only to be loved, but movies that want to be loved are like puppies in the pound: No matter how earnestly they wag their fiddling tails, yous can adopt only ane at a time.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his decease in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Milky way (2005)
109 minutes
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