Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

December 6, 2005

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 110 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I have never read the books, I had no idea what this movie was going to be about before I sat down in my seat so, if you are a fanatic for this guys work you are not going to like what I have to say. If you do then I say cool, my fandom continues.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy The movie starts out on planet Earth somewhere in England in the bedroom of Arthur Dent (Freeman). He wakes up, heads downstairs for some tea and strumpets and a nice read of the old black and white, when all of the sudden the whole flat (house) starts to shudder. It would seem the old boy is about to get spaced. Arthur looks outside to see bulldozers and contractors everywhere hell bent on smashing his little abode to splinters. Art pleads but the foreman proceeds to remind him that the order for demolition has been in the building commissioners office for months and if he wanted to save his home he should have spoken up before now.

Enter Arthur’s best friend, Ford Prefect (Def). Ford delivers beer to the contractors and tells Art to come with him to the pub and nothing will happen to his house until they finish their pints. Ordering 3 for each of them Ford begins to tell Art that today is the very last for dear old mother Earth and in about 10 minutes it would all be over… you see Ford is actually not a rapper at all, he is a space alien (of course he is, that would explain the Mos Def name). The pints get downed and so does the Earth and next thing we know our heroes are aboard a Vogon (scary fat aliens that resemble Marlon Brando post Godfather) construction vessel where they get captured and tortured with poetry??? This is where the movie started to lose me but luckily I caught back up long enough to get lost again later.

Art and Ford get dropped out an airlock and just before the 30 seconds of oxygen leaves them they get picked up by another passing ship (hitchhikers you know) and become couches, yes you read that right they become couches. I don’t get it. Well, I mean I get it in the sense I know what a couch is but I don’t get why they become couches. Anyway after they stop being couches and ‘Normality’ returns they find out they are on board the President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s (Rockwell) ship, the Heart of Gold. Here Art finds his one true Earthly love Trillian (they met earlier but he refused to go to Madagascar and she chose the Galactic prez instead)… Do you see what I mean when I say lost?

Freaky, weird oddball stuff that got weirder with each passing minute! The best part other than the excellent Dubya impression by Zaphod and the appearance of John Malkovich was Marvin (Warwick Davis) voiced by Alan Rickman… He is a manic depressive robot with an oversized head and a penchant for drama. He made this thing tolerable for me and if it hadn’t been for the mice and flowers… never mind that gives away too much. I will stop here and let you go see it for yourself. I am not sure if it follows the book or not since as you can see from the comment above, I have not read it!

I like British humor and love Monty Python but this did not blow my kilt up as much as it did some of the other guys here at MFG that saw it, so if you want another opinion I suggest you email John and ask him what he thought. Sorry Douglas Adams geeks but I stand by my 3 stars.

Posted by J.C. Edwards | Filed Under 3 Stars, Alan Rickman, Comedy, DVD, Martin Freeman, Mos Def, PG-13, Sam Rockwell, SciFi, Zooey Deschanel