previous

DON'T PANIC
May 05, 2005 - 4:26 p.m.

next

Amy and I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy yesterday. Heh.

I was a huge Hitchhiker's fan when I was a wee geek. (when?) I read all the books, carried a towel about for a while, called people "hoopy frood" and whatnot. So I was excited when I heard that they were making a movie, at long last. (Douglas Adams, the creator of HHG2TG, once said that "getting a movie made is like trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people come into a room and breathe on it.") I'd read some bad reviews, but braced myself and hoped for the best.

It was pretty good, actually. Mind, not as funny as the books...but then Douglas Adams was English, and there's something about English humour that's funnier on paper than in person. I think it's the reliance on descriptive point of view, which is difficult to skew in a movie.

Marvin the Paranoid Android Still, I enjoyed it...especially Marvin the Paranoid Android, played by Warwick Davis and voiced by Alan Rickman. The choice of Rickman was inspired...there's a depressed contempt that lingers in the corners of his mouth like crumbs of stale bleu cheese.

One of the funniest (and most frightening) aspects of the movie was that Sam Rockwell, who played the dimwitted and obnoxious President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beebelbrox, had clearly modelled his performance on George W. Bush. The voice, the vapid yet curious expression...needing lemon juice to keep his brain active. It all fits. I only wish someone had been there to tell George that "buttons aren't toys."

|