Film Review : The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

As a fan of the previous incarnations of Hitchhiker's, it's difficult to give an impartial review of this film. I spent a lot of the time thinking "that's not in the book" or "they've chopped that joke in half", so it's hard to say whether it was a good film or not.

Let's hear the case for and against.....

Pros : the effects were in the main great, especially the staccato pull-back from Earth to the Vogon destructor fleet, and the journey through Magrathea. Martin Freeman was fine as Arthur Dent, and the girl who played Trillian was quite cute. There were some laugh out loud moments (eg the puppet crew), and generally it was a fun ride.

Cons : Mos Def as Ford Prefect was a bit of a non-entity. In the TV series Ford was great fun, but he was a bit dull in the film. I'm in two minds about Zaphod (ahem) - he was certainly entertaining, but was just a little but too OTT. The Guide itself wasn't an improvement on the TV version, and I didn't think Stephen Fry was right for the voice. And don't get me started on Marvin! The plot was OK, but was so far removed from the source material that it just threw me a bit. Most of this was forgiveable, but the conclusion was not. *SPOLIER* Having Earth rebuilt and put back to exactly as it was before the Vogon's appeared was illogical, and trivialised Arthur's plight.

Despite these niggles I did enjoy the film, and I would recommend it. I give it ***1/2