Now, I do have a review, and to be damned with bad movies, I'm not gonna let that hold me back when there are so many movies that have potential, finally coming out. I have already missed my chance to review Constantine and Sin City because I wanted to put a bad movie first. This day, I will review
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, now the Box Office numbers have yet to be released for today, so I have not yet gotten them to put here, but when I do get them I will post them.
*Edit: Numbers are in. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy made on opening night $8,100,000, totally destroying XXX2 by nearly double, and went on to make $21,707,000 to date for their opening weekend. Not too shabby.
The Guide is getting some pretty strong recognition as a good movie, but of course, there are the Book Fans that have instantly labeled it as a "Oh No." I've read the book more times than I can count, and love it entirely, but I am someone who understands that the adaptation from book to movie is shaky and there has to be differences. Its two forms of media. But I have this warning to anyone who walks in expecting an exact adaptation.... IT IS DIFFERENT. Way different, this is only as to put enough into it to make a movie, and smooth out the plot that stretches five books, into a nice two hour movie. The problem with the book is that it's short enough to fill about an hour, and ends on one major cliffhanger. Please don't expect to see the exact book on the screen. If you wanna see that, there's a very nice Mini-Series on DVD right now that does it well.
Moving on, the changes are far from bad. This movie was in production for a long while (more so preproduction for a while) and Douglas Adams himself wrote the screenplay before he passed away, these are all his ideas, and stay true to the Brit humor that all his fans love.
The movie starts on a Thursday, the worst Thursday ever in fact, in a small town in England, where we find Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) an average man who is about to go on a very unaverage adventure. See Arthur happened to be friends with Ford Prefect (Mos Def) who is not an Earthling, but an alien man from a planet somewhere in the proximity of Betelgeuse. Arthur once saved Ford's life, so Ford repays the favor. The Earth is promptly destroyed. We follow Arthur and Ford, as well as Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and Marvin the Paranoid Robot (Warwick Davis, Voiced by: Alan Rickman) as they travel the Galaxy in the stolen ship; The Heart of Gold.
As said before, the movie deviates from the book plot to fill in a gap, but otherwise stays amazingly true to the books with many exact quotes. The new material and the old flow seamlessly, giving the movie a feel of consistency throughout. The humor stays true to its British origins, giving quite a few Brit references, such one being "Leave this to me. I'm British, I know how to queue."
One of the greatest moves was of course Marvin, the Paranoid Robot. There is no man alive who could voice him better than Alan Rickman; his drulling English accent is pretty much to a T what I had when reading the books so long ago. His lines, straight out of the books and new to the screen, got some of the best responses. His stubby body and large head was what Douglas was quoted as saying he really wanted Marvin to look like, rather than the way he appeared in the Miniseries.
Overall the movie did really well in keeping Adam's legacy alive, and I would have to say, the only real problem I had was they never explained WHY the towel was important ;) But all the book readers should know that in advanced. I also notices, that alot of the movie seemed to have made the cut, as we see certain things in the Trailers, that don't appear in the movie. But that only makes good for DVD extras, and Director's Cuts.
8 out of 10 Go watch it, right now.
Expect a new post on Thursday, right now this sass frood needs to get some sleep.
