Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Sticking a thumb out...

Well, it's Hitch-Hikers week here in the UK - not only did the movie open this weekend, but BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting the last of the new radio adaptation of Douglas Adams' books AND BBC TV is re-running the TV adaptation from the eighties.
More on the radio once I've heard a bit more of it.

WARNING!!! Potential Spoilerage Follows

The film I saw on Bank Holiday Monday and... I enjoyed it!
Yes, I did. It's not the H2G2 purists might have wished for but it IS H2G2 - the movie version. I've seen a fair bit of criticism this weekend of the film and how it is not faithful enough to the original - newflash: NONE of the other versions are truly that faithful to the original radio series. The books diverted in different directions, the computer game ditto and the TV series was little more than a subset of the first two radio series/books; even the towel was a version, not an accurate representation!

Martin Freeman as Arthur is fine. A Dent for the noughties. He won't ever replace Simon Jones in the fans affections, but that is truly not the point. Sam Rockwell is underused - or, rather, Zaphod is. There are a couple of gags that feature the Big Zee but that's it. Mos Def as Ford? Fine. Again, a different Ford, but none the worse for that. He still has that 'otherworldly' feeling that marks him out as not quite belonging on Earth, and I like him. Zooey Deschamel as Trillian? She was cute and clever and really rather nice. The American accent jarred a little (as it did in the TV series - no offence intended towards Sandra Dickinson, but her version of Trillian was what I liked least about the TV series - especially as, in the special 'Making Of video that the BBC issued some years after the event, Adams admitted that she could have done an 'English Rose' accent but they (the creatives) didn't ask...)
I liked Marvin. I liked even more the fact that the TV Marvin made a cameo appearence and that Simon Jones appeared as the security video on Magrathea. I liked that Bill Bailey, one of my favourite comic perfomers, voiced the Sperm Whale. I loved Stephen Fry as 'The Book' (seing as Peter Jones was not a possibility, Fry was the best replacement) I didn't like that the film started with a song and not "Journey of The Sorcerer" by Bernie Leadon but then I was more than pleased to hear it's familiar strains over the first appearence of "The Book" itself!

The story is slight and filled with some marvelous sight gags that would possibly have appealed to Douglas Adams if he were still alive (oh, thre are a couple of other Adams related in-jokes in the film - but you'll have to find them for yourselves!).
My cony concern is that the ending doesn't actually close some of the plot points - but presumably these will be addressed in any subsequent sequel (and that has been more than adequatly set up)
If you are a died in the wool, old school radio series fan who hated the TV series and hasn't bought a new towel in years (and, by the way, Marks & Spencer missed a trick by not having one of THEIR towels in a 'Product Placement' deal!), then you'll probably have already made up your mind about this film and wont be bothering with it anyway. I respect that. To everyone else, however, go to see the film. It's as entertaining a way to spend two hours as I can think of (I do have a slightly limited imagination!).

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