The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Every version of the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” — radio show, book, TV show, computer game, comic book — was different, and all of them had input or direct creative control by Douglas Adams. So it is that the movie version of that most wholly remarkable book again strays from the well-trodden space lanes into wild and woolly backwaters and some of the strangest Hitchhikers’ adventures yet.

For the uninitiated, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” tells the story of what happens after the Earth is destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass (because you’ve got to build bypasses), including discovering what the whole point of the Earth was to begin with. It helps that one of Arthur Dent’s good friends was an alien researcher for the interstellar travel book and general encyclopedia, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and not from Guilford after all. They’re picked up by the president of the galaxy, who is tooling around the galaxy in a stolen spaceship and, incidentally, has picked up a girl that Arthur really liked, but totally failed to pick up at a party back in England.

For those familiar with the other iterations of the story, the familiar beats are (mostly) here: The Vogon Constructor Fleet darkening the skies above the Earth, Vogon poetry, the Babel fish, Marvin the Paranoid Android, the short unhappy life of a sperm whale, Deep Thought, the fjord-designing Slartibartfast and a Guide full of dubious wisdom.

What’s really interesting for long-term fans (and what are arguably the most successful parts of the film) are all the new bits: See! The Vogon homeworld, Vogsphere! Meet! The candidate Zaphod Beeblebrox beat out for the presidency! Marvel! At the gun designed by Deep Thought! Get Slapped! By a hilarious security system-cum-behavioral management system!

Although the film isn’t perfect — it would probably be hard to please everyone with this film, frankly — the script is strong, the effects top notch (although it’s a little frustrating that filmmakers avoided most of the technical challenges presented by Zaphod’s alien physiology), the actors acquit themselves well (Sam Rockwell as Zaphod is so good, you want to strangle him with your bare hands) and overall, it’s a great deal of fun, if not the home run that long-time fans hoped it might be. (But then, it’s also not the disaster it could have been, which was a strong, strong possibility.)

Recommended for fans of Monty Python, Terry Gilliam and, of course, Hitchhiker fans of all shapes and sizes. The film version of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” strikes out for new directions in the best tradition of the story, and is a great tribute to the spirit and sensibility of the late, great Douglas Adams. (And look for more than one appearance of his portrait in the film, a very classy move by filmmakers.)

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