FILM REVIEW _ THE HITCH-HIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
Dull and dry and rather
flat adaptation with many additional scenes that not only don't come from the
books, but also make no sense in the film either - some book/radio/TV scenes
are done, but left without half their punchlines, the opening bulldozers
outside Arthur’s House scenes are rushed, Arthur starts off the well known,
'the plans were in a cellar' gag, but fails to get to the behind a door with a
note saying beware of the leopard' bit that actually makes it funny, instead we
are left with, I had to go down a cellar.... - We only get about four snippets
from the HGTTG book itself, read nicely by Stephen Fry, the Vogons look great,
their ships rather too Borg Cube and they overstay their welcome becoming the
main enemy chasing the heroes throughout the film, - We see little of the Babel
fish, at one point Ford is talking to a giant woman in fishnets who may or may
not be the triple breasted whore of Eroticon etc, as the point of the gag is
never completed, Trillion and Arthur’s story becomes a central romance plot,
that consumes the film, Zaphod is a good performance of a serious wacko
stone-head, sometimes literally given pressed lemons to his head, 'for zest' as
one character quips, his second head occasionally growing up from under the
first to take over - worse, the improbability drive surreal sequence of Arthur
& Ford mutating through all sorts of bizarre images and the immortal line 'you're
turning into a penguin, stop it' is reduced to a single change over into a
sofa, - cameos from the TV Arthur Dent as the Golgafrincham Weapons defence
system, and the original Marvin queuing for Vogon service are neat - the big
problem is the sub-plot in which Zaphod tangles with a manic robotic
preacher-man played by John Malkovich, who kidnaps one of Zaphod's heads to
hold for ransom unless Zaphod gets him a special gun.
Slartibartfast's planet
building factory is beautifully realised, and the final battle in which the
captured gun, (able to make anyone fired upon with it see the shooter's point
of view) is fired at the Vogons by Marvin at which they all instantly lose the
will to live is fun - but no one shows the slightest interest in rescuing Zaphod's
head or completing the promises associated with the weapon, - a disjointed
mess, sometimes funny but often sprawling and with gags left in the air and
threads abandoned in their stride. Loved the dolphin song, better in the
closing arrangement than that which opens the film, which on the whole I found
a big disappointment
Arthur Chappell
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