cinema lunatic

But, was it normality that we were seeking in the long-awaited movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy, the five-part trilogy/radio show/television show by Douglas Adams? While I thought this version of the story was mostly harmless, it didn't have enough of the loony joie de vivre that made fans out of the first two books.

Maybe it was because a more mature Douglas Adams penned the movie script than the one who dashed off 30 minutes of humor at the last minute every week for the BBC in the late 1970s. This was the Douglas Adams who authored "Mostly Harmless" and the two Dirk Gently Holistic Detective Agency books. By those later books, Adams had perfected his maddening brand of plot --- in which seemingly random events don't so much come together at the end as they do crash.

Seen in this light, Adams' new additions to the story --- a love quadrangle between Arthur, Trillian, Zaphod and a new character Questular; and a scene with new character Humma Kavula, played by a creepy John Malkovich --- actually add to the original HHGG. Actually, those parts --- and a weird bit involving knit sock puppets and the Infinite Improbability Drive -- were among the freshest parts of the movie.

What I really missed was the chemistry between the characters that I can only describe as "sincere zaniness." It's not the actors do a bad job. Martin Freeman approaches Arthur, more lovesick than homesick, at a little different of an angle than the definitive portrayal by Simon Jones. Mos Def captures the sweet strangeness of my favorite character, Ford Prefect, the curious, but lazy adventurer who is genetically incapable of recognizing sarcasm. Not all the actors work out. Zooey Deschanel's cute but bland Trillian reminded me of Meg Ryan-lite. (So, it finally appears that Sandra Dickinson of the TV show has been the only actress who has been able to play Trillian as funny and edgy. Before I get hate mail, I think that Susan Sheridan has been the only actress who has played Trillian as sexy.)

But it seems like the Adams' relaxed sense of fun was stripped, maybe so as not to scare the normal people away. The best parts are the narration from the actual Guide, read by Stephen Fry. The guide book passages preserve the deep perception and the random bits of wit that attracted legions of fans to Douglas Adams in the first place.

I want to think that the there are parts of the dialogue existing somewhere in the world and merely fell to the cutting room floor at the hands of a soulless and merciless editor --- much like Ford Prefect's original entry for Earth was edited down to two words because of room. Maybe someday, we'll get a parallel version of that HHGG, where the non-sequiturs weren't cut out. The movie clocks in at 97 minutes and I could have used another 15 minutes of the HHGG's famously witty banter.

Oh, yeah. That dialogue does exist. On the radio.

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