The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Man, this movie just kicked my ass. It was so relentlessly action packed with high-energy fantastical disappointments that I really feel like I just got hit on the head with a pillow soaked in olive oil. My noggin is numb and I need to take a nap to cleanse my brainage. On the walk back from the theater I kept replaying this movie in my head to doublecheck and make sure it was as bad as I felt it was and I kept coming to the same conclusion.... it was that bad.

Recently while on jury duty I re-read the original book after not reading it for like 15 years. I was fairly convinced that I would not dig the book again. That it would strike me as hoaky and cheesed out. But I was happy to see that the book held up pretty well. I laughed out loud a bunch of times in the 'jury lounge' feeling happy sneaky about having entertainment going on in my head while everyone seemed to be sitting around bored. The book has such a good flow that it reads like it wrote itself and Douglas Adams basically was just trying to keep up sprinkling funnies and weirdness along the way. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote that thing in a couple 'in the zone' weeks. So I was ramped up and ready to see it all splash in front of me on the big screen.

From the getgo something seemed wrong with this movie. Really wrong. Off. I couldn't put my finger on it but over time things started to add up. The acting across the board fell somewhere between decent and god awful. Nobody stood out and shined. Nothing was funny. Whoever played the chick seemed like she went to the Andie McDowell School of Acting. And does anybody really actually like Sam Rockwell? Another thing was the momentum in this movie was more like one of those old toy cars that you pulled backwards and it goes forward by itself for like 5 feet. Yawn. Plus the whole thing was flatter than my feet.

And as the flick smelled up the room it attempted to clear the air by getting more terrible and boring- which was a poor choice of direction under the circumstance. Sure sure some of the visuals were cool. And the Vogons who looked acceptabley terrible. But there was nothing and no one to latch on to. Not once did I get a tingle of 'Ooh... I've seen that in my head!' Or, 'Ooh! That's what that looks like!' And worst of all I didn't laugh out loud once. Not friggin once. Splat.

Three Good Things About This Movie

- Some of the bigness of the big effects were effective in looking big.
- The Vogons looked cool and their facial expressions were subtle and coolio.
- It wasn't overlong.

Three Bad Things About This Movie

- Everyone was miscast.
- It was as much fun as being stuck on an amusement park ride that sucks. Wheee. Yay... Is it over?
- Not sure where they found the director but they might have been better off leaving him there.

All in all I guess this movie is sort of interesting to watch and be disappointed by if you're a fan of the books. But if you haven't read them,  don't see this movie. It probably doesn't make any sense. I think it's only worth watching from an observational translational adaptational standpoint to see what they done to the book. Not sure what Douglas Adams would think about this fiasco (he died a few years back) but I get the feeling he's all mopey in heaven right now... being consoled by Dr. Seuss.

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