Basck Stage
23 September 2005
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (2005) is at the New Capitol Cinemas.
Now here is a wonderful film, which will appeal to many, and float over the heads of others as fast as you can say "Don't Panic" or push an improbability generator button. Even those who began following "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when it first appeared in 1978 as a BBC radio programme, then as a five-book series (which the author called a "trilogy in five parts"), then in 1981 as a television series, followed by a drama, comic books and more recently on web sites - will have mixed reactions to the current movie interpretation. So much is left out; and there are even some new bits that its creator, Douglas Adams, added to the script before he died in 2001 of a heart attack at only 49.
Space is unbelievably big.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is very much a British film, replete with humour best associated with that tight little island. After a prelude introducing us to the second and third brightest life on the planet earth, we are then plunged into Arthur Dent's (played naturally by Martin Freeman) confrontation with authorities that want to bulldoze his house away because it is blocking the path of a bypass. But there is a bigger problem that descends from space; a fleet of Vogon destroyer vehicles set to eliminate Earth as it has been deemed to be an obstruction on a galactic space route. The Vogons, who are a take off on the old British aristocracy, are not really bad creatures at heart, they love poetry, but theirs is always abysmally bad. They have been adroitly created in the Jim Henson Creature Shop.
Arthur is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect (acted suavely by Mos Def), who is named after the car that nearly killed him. Ford Prefect is an alien space traveller in human disguise and researcher for the hitchhiker guides, hailing from out there near Betelgeuse. Together, with their towels, they hitchhike on a Vogon spacecraft. Thus, their journey through the galaxies begins.
Arthur has a yearning for the bright Tricia a.k.a Trillian (played by brunette Zooey Deschanel), who really wanted to go to Madagascar, but Arthur couldn't hear her. She has been taken into space by the President of the Galaxies, Zaphod Beeblebrox (a fast talking Sam Rockwell), a parody on President George W. Bush, with his two heads and three arms and evangelical way of speaking. On their spacecraft, "The Heart of Gold", they are assisted by the famous depressed robot of all Androids, Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman, moved by Warwick Davis). Our hitchhiking duo is found by Marvin and brought up to the bridge.
Eventually the Presidential spacecraft reaches, by accident, the small planet of Humma Kavula (played with vigour by our John Malkovich), a most unusually disembodied evangelical cult leader of the art of sneezing-a special hymn is created for him and his followers.
The movie employs some of the visual shortcuts found in the novels. There are also flashbacks to consultations with Deep Thought (voiced by Helen Mirren) that search for the meaning of the universe-without the input of the right questions what answers can be expected? If you are seeing it the first time, having never had any connection with any other aspects of "Hitchhiker's Guide", watch and listen to the mice carefully, because they represent a solution you might miss-it is "the best laid plans of mice and men that often go astray" ...
The unusual, fanciful, idiosyncratic and capricious humour that makes this film a winner has been supported by the team that made the movie, known as "Hammer and Tongs", they really are the director, Garth Jennings, and the producer Nick Goldsmith.
The theme song about the porpoises who tried to warn humans about the end of the world is also great -"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish". In the end, aficionados of the original radio programmes will miss the music that was used then. Perhaps to make a movie from so much material is a "mission impossible", but for me I am glad it has arrived.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is one hour and 44 minutes long. It is rated PG because of monsters, aggressive action and zapping. Garth Jennings is the director, the script is by Douglas Adams and Karey Kirkpatrick, from Adams' novels; the cinematographer is Igor Jadue-Lillo and the editor is Niven Howie; with music by Joby Talbot. The DVD was released on August 25, and if you want it, get the two disc UK version with fascinating extra features on the making of the film.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2005 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
