Western Oregon Journal

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Attention all movie lovers: Don’t Panic! This isn’t the worst adaptation of a book that has ever been made (Don’t forget poor Dr. Seuss and his bastardized Cat and the Hat disaster)! The book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy first appeared in 1978 by now deceased writer Douglas Adams, and became an instant cult classic to all by 1984. So where is all the hype with this new film by director Garth Jennings? It is certainly not going toward this movie!

Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is a normal man living a normal life—with one exception: He has no idea that a good friend of his is actually an alien, and pretty soon, his home on planet Earth will be blown to smithereens in order to make room for a super highway in the universe. Arthur (only one of two humans that is rescued upon the explosion of Earth) is snatched up by Ford Prefect (Mos Def, and Arthur’s alien friend), and they hitch a ride on the nearest alien spaceship where more trouble from an angry group of aliens called “Vorgons” arises.

In a nutshell, Arthur and Ford have to get themselves out of their sticky situation with the Vorgons, end up meeting up with the president of the galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), and the only other surviving human named Trillion, or Trisha (Zooey Deschanel) who Arthur just happened to have a crush on when Earth was still standing. Together, along with a whole crap-load of other characters including a depressed robot named Marvin (Warwick Davis), the group embarks on a quest to discover the unanswerable question: What is the meaning of life?

Hitchhiker is a science fiction, Monty Python-type movie with a lot of good ideas jam-packed together into a messy plot and served on a rusted platter to unsuspecting audiences. To be honest, this movie has great potential, but Jennings didn’t want to use it! There is just too much information for such a short movie, and it was not put together properly anyhow. The movie is boring, the acting is mediocre, the plot is disorganized and the visuals are not as impressive as they could have been. Quite frankly, Hitchhiker won’t be winning an Oscar this year.

Props go to the excellent actor, John Malcovitch, who played half of a body on legs, alien Humma Kavula. Malcovitch was creepy, yet poetic in this role, but did not get enough screen time seeing as he was just a supporting actor. Negative a million props are awarded to actor Rockwell who played Zaphod. Can we say obnoxious? As for the rest of the acting talents, none were impressive enough worth mentioning, aside from the narrator’s voice (Stephen Fry), which the audience never actually sees, but who has quite an amusing and pleasing voice.

There really isn’t much more to say about Hitchhiker except that it is quite tragic that such a wonderful basis for a movie had to go to waste on this second-rate film. Hitchhiker in no way “sucked,” it was just by no means “good.” Advice: Read the book and skip the movie! But isn’t this advice that one could give for almost any book-adapted movie?

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