PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 4/29/05)

Unlike the holy texts of such perennial geek-lit faves as the Harry Potter cycle or one of them hobbit-and-orc epics, British author Douglas Adams' famously weird and wonderful sci-fi comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy—often abbreviated as H2G2—should at least be granted a bit of wiggle room for appropriation. After all, Adams himself was known to tweak his own story, jokes and characters to fit his whims within H2G2's vehicles over the years, from its initial run as a 1978 radio series to its most popular form, a five-book "trilogy," with subsequent reworkings as a BBC miniseries, comic book, video game, another radio show, website, and even a towel. Sadly, Adams succumbed to a heart attack four years ago, but not before turning in yet another revision, a screenplay draft that was polished by Karey Kilpatrick (Chicken Run) into the highest-profile adaptation yet attempted, a project given to the music-video whiz team of "Hammer & Tongs" (director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith). Reasonably reverent in its droll eccentricity but terribly Americanized in its comic delivery, the feature-length H2G2 is an enjoyable mess that aimlessly goofs like Men in Black when its script calls for Black Adder.

What made the H2G2 body of work so creatively malleable was that its funniest and most unforgettable moments weren't in the plotline but its pages-long digressions, where Adams translated his day-to-day ruminations on life, the universe and everything into a broader cosmos that satirized human hypocrisy and fallibility with a supporting cast of extraterrestrials. Just as in the book, Earth's inciting swan song remains the same in the film, as the unbendingly bureaucratic Vogon race has scheduled the planet's destruction to make room for a hyperspace bypass, the same day that unlikely hero Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman)—an ordinary Englishman by any standard—discovers his friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) is a galaxy-hopping hitchhiker from Betelgeuse. Saved by Ford's thumb, the uptight Arthur's original adventures in space were made all the more riotous because his only remaining passion was a quest for a good cup of tea, yet the movie's Arthur is now hopelessly in love with Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), a fellow earthling he once met at a party?! An unforgivably improbable romance in a premise built on enough improbabilities of its own (at one point, everyone turns into yarn puppets), the Arthur-and-Trillian love arc is supposedly from Adams' draft, but a lack of emotional context pulverizes the story thread into a wasteful mush, a recurring texture that soaks throughout and reeks of mass-marketing interference from Disney studio execs.

Lumpish as it is, H2G2 sparks light-hearted charm from its fabulously choice cast. As Zaphod Beebelbrox, the half-wit party monster who runs the galaxy with two heads, Sam Rockwell adds a twang of Dubya oilman to his rockstar posturing that's as fun to watch as it probably was to play. Freeman, Deschanel and especially Def all deserve more to work with, but their charisma helps draw attention away from such better-in-theory missteps as the terminally-depressed Marvin the Paranoid Android (a cute white robot with Alan Rickman's sonorous sulking, how did this not work?). Factor in some delightfully cheesy visual gags, oddball originality and in-jokes for the die-hards (a planet made of Adams' face, cameos by the BBC version's Arthur and Marvin, etc.), then compare to what's swimming at the multiplex this week… there are far worse things you could be sticking in your ear.

—Aaron Hillis

Related Links:
• The Galaxy's Guide to Sam Rockwell
A look at how Hollywood's coolest character actor became king of the universe.

• Space Oddity
Martin Freeman thumbs a ride with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

How many stars would you give The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? 0 stars   0% 1 star   0% 2 stars   0% 3 stars   25% 4 stars   75% TOTAL ENTRIES: 4