JB's Blog

The Hitch Hiker’s guide to the Galaxy is an epic tale written by Douglas Adams that I think most people already know the in’s and out’s of…

At least I thought I did before I did the ringing rounds to see who was coming to the opening tonight. When I called my friend Megan she had no idea what I was talking about, and asked “What’s that? Some type of indie flick?”… hmm… “yeah, you could
say that” I replied. To be honest it’s quite strange hearing that some people have never heard of the tale before.

This turned out to be a good thing however, as whilst Megan is by know means a sci-fi buff she enjoyed the whirlwind movie for what it is; a fun tale of running about in space. Quite a slick piece of film slapped together. It feels like you’re being whisked away from one scene to the next with very thin cross-over between the two. It works well for HHGTTG as it is truely is a chaotic rollercoaster ride.
The guide itself is designed quite neatly in typical modern minimalistic state with simple pictures and verbatim narrative from the book.

There were quite a few things cut out and changed in the film version from the original ‘piece’. I refer to the book as some type of artwork as it’s widely considered as gospel and therefore can’t be interpreted in anyway. Whilst the movie is not a canonical form of the book it is still the world of HHGTTG, and therefore brings an immense sense of scale to the film.

I did hope that Marvin the depressed android would have slightly more screen time but he made his debut wondefully (definately my favourite character, I love Robots). Perhaps my only decent criticism is that the film could have been a tad shorter, just some things here and there didn’t seem to gel too well and grated a little. Still the pace was kept up and ultimately

For those of you that haven’t read the book then I do recommened it. However if you have read the book then be prepared for a fun film that won’t give you much else then a fix. This is not an epic tale, more like fast food which ultimately these days are what movies are about.

I give the movie 4/5 for those who are prepared to sit back and relax. 2/5 for those who want to see a verbatim copy of the book.