Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Today after work, Ian, Al and I went to see the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie. It was always going to be a difficult prospect, translating such a work onto the big screen. I was determined to go into it with an open mind. I wasn’t expecting an adaptation of my favourite version, like some people seemed to be. I wasn’t trying to tear it down based on the choice of actor. I wasn’t going to be the wanker sitting there going ‘It’s not as good as the books!’

Ultimately, this foolishly level-headed approach brought me only the bitter stench of defeat. For with all my optimism about how great a film it could be, I wasn’t expecting anything as bad as what I finally saw.

I spent ages defending this film both on and off the internet, telling people not to judge it until they’ve seen the damn thing, and to judge it as a seperate entity from the book or radio or TV. Well, I’ve seen it. I’ve judged it. The jury of one is in, and the verdict is unanimous: Craptacular.

The pacing was horrible. For teh whole film. It was like there was some mandate where the director was told not to let any breathing room into any scene. At times it seemed that no-one was allowed to finish a thought or sentence without being knocked to the ground, or having someone interrupt. The plot, such that it was, careened along without daring to take a second to look inwards upon itself. That’s probably why about 50% of the whole film goes utterly, utterly unresolved. I konw it’s hardly the first time a hitch-hiker’s installment has gone without total closure, but you’d think for a movie, they’d try to keep it all self-contained. it wouldn’t be hafl as bad if the major unresolved plots weren’t ones they introduced solely FOR the movie.

Strike One: Horrible direction and pacing.

Next, it has to be said, I found the acting sub-par. First of all, there’s Marvin. It’s bad enough having to imagine Warwick Davis under that suit, but giving him Alan Rickman’s voice ultimately worked against him. Without having any discernable mouth on the robot meaning a lack of animation related to speech, I couldn’t get past Rickman’s voice. The whole time, it was just ‘hey, Alan Rickman!’ A slight vocal filter would’ve probably done the trick, but instead I was snapped out of the immersion zone every time a Marvin line was delivered.

Then there’s Ford. I didn’t like the TV Ford at all, but I have new appreciation after seeing Mos Def in the role. I thought it was incredibly stupid of people to go around saying stuff like “wah, wah, Ford isn’t black.” because it’s not remotely integral to the character, what skin colour he is. If Mos Def was hired to play Hitler, then those people might have a case, but Ford himself can be any creed or colour, as long as the character is right. To be fair, there were glimmers of that. Something I never got in the TV series was just why Ford cared about Arthur at all anyway, he seemed to bring him along jsut so he could get exasperated with him. I didn’t get a sense of friendship between them. That’ almost comes across in some scenes here. However, any good character moments are far outweighed by the number of times Mos Def fluffs a joke with a mumbed delivery. Say it with me: E-NUN-CI-ATE!

Zaphod looked quite good (despite the Chad Kroeger similarities) but character wise, he lacked the charisma I’d expect from a man who tricked his way to the top of the galaxy. The second head was hideously manic, and the former merely nonlinear. I konw the character should contain both of those qualities, but playing him almost as a victim of his own second head made him seem a little too far out of control of himself. If they’d gone somewhere with it, fair enough, but I can’t figure out why it was done. He spends the second half of the film in what appears to be an almost lobotomised state.

Trillian was probably the best of the main cast, in the film. She’s never been an especially well-defined character, and I’d say the movie’s high point was giving her some actual role in the plot. However, making her the love interest in a very specific sense, and worse, in a reciprocal sense, was probably the single /worst/ thing about the film. I’ll never recover from seeing Arthur and Trillian kiss at the end. Fair enough, versions don’t remain consistent, but that’s a change that I can’t see any sense in.

Lastly, there’s Arthur. Martin Freeman managed what would’ve taken lesser men years of work. He managed to make Arthur act less like a slightly clueless guy trying to catch up with everyone after his world is turned upside down, and more like a complete petty jerk trying to one-up everyone else in front of Trillian. There’s a brief portion of the film where he takes control, where he seems more like the slightly better natured arthur of the books, but it’s over quite fast. This is why I don’t like the Trillian love interest plot, though. Before he just a passenger on a ride he never asked for. 10 minutes into this film and it starts to seem like he’s basically chasing pussy across the universe.

Strike Two: Bad casting.

Hich-hiker is best known for being uproarously funny. I mean, it’s probably one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. It’s had me weeping with laughter on multiple occasions. The other versions all have their own humour, and in every one it’s great. The film, however, goes with its own identity. Apparantly it derives its humour from blowing punchlines and inserting action scenes inappropriately. Stuff they took from the book was under-explained, the greatest jokes reduced to rubble in the wake of the bad pacing I mentioned. Some of the best jokes were pushed into the background, others truncated, it was a total hack job. The punchline for the bulldozer/planning permission joke is reduced to merely, “It was in the basement.” UTTER. BULLSHIT. That joke does not become funny until you get to “Beware of the leopard,” nor does it become truly gold until you get to “The lights were gone.” “So were the stairs.” This is an example of how to ripp off existing jokes, and not do it correctly.

Remember “Zaphod…he’s just this guy, y’know?” Well, not if you weren’t listening hard enough, because that’s almost audible in the background of another scene. And what makes it funny? The way it’s repeated. Except in the film, it happens once only. I can think of one original joke from the film which was funny, and that was the “He’s locked the gate from the other side! We’ll have to go around!” thing. They get bonus points for doing a half decent translation of the plumetting whale’s monologue, though. The guide itself was a source of much of the book’s humour, but again, the jokes come from asides in those entries. When you cut out the jokes about Space being vast from the books, you’re left with statistics, which aren’t funny. When you cut out the bit about god disappearing in a puff of logic fomr the babelfish entry, you’re left with exposition, which isn’t funny. The guide is quite literally a plot device, which you barely even see in the film!

Visually, the guide entries are pretty good, though. They remind me of iPod adverts, but they’re still good. Quite a pleasure to watch, and complementing the narration with visual comedy. It’s a shame they cut out so many of them. Quite how anyone was supposed to understand the obsession with towels without sufficient exposition, I’ll never know. If you’re going to use it to infodump the audience, surely you should do it for the especially obscure stuff?

Strike Three: Bad Jokes, badly forced

The special effects are pretty much what you can expect from a high budget film. They were almost all quite nice, except for one or two points. My big problem was the destruction of earth, which looked like they’d just faded the planet to black and overlayed a tiny firecracker going off. When the BBC can do a better rendition of Earth exploding on Dr. Who’s budget, you know that maybe more attention should’ve been paid. In fact, the even their own teaser trailer had a better version of it. The effects for the planet-building were great, it has to be said. That entire scene was probably the apex of the flim, it’s the only time I felt the emotional, visual and comedic weight of the film came across in full force. The character design for the Vogons was almost exactly how I’d always pictured them, and the design of Deep Thought was probably my favourite in the film. Reminds me of a Dali painting, though I get the feeling it’s a reference to a specific artist and I forget who.

I wanted to like this film, I really did. I can honestly say if I never saw it again, I wouldn’t be even slightly bothered. It is a pale imitation of what it should’ve been. I’m deeply cynical about the whole affair, and I can’t stop the nagging doubt that says that (and please, prepare for a statement made in the worst possible taste here) it wouldn’t have been like this if Adams were alive. I know it’s a ridiculous and callous suggestion, and I know we can’t know what his intentions were, but please, it’s the only explanation I can find to make me feel better, that idiots ruined what could’ve been a masterpiece with the right man behind it all.

It occurs to me that at some point during watching the film and writing this review/dismemberment of it, I repressed the most awful intro sequence ever. I knew things were bad when I watched dolphins jumping around to musical theatre for the first 5 minutes of the film. Ugh.

So that’s it. Rest assured that afterwards, I was chomping at the bit to get on the internet and register my disgust. By all means, go forth and watch it. Waste your hard earned money as I have done mine. Just, when you get back and come crying to me about how you feel like your good memory of the Guide has been raped, you’ll only hear what I leave as my parting words:

I told you it sucks.