REVIEWED - THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY: Observing the thunderous fury emanating from sadder corners of the internet - "It is a travesty of a film. I mourn for it, I really do," Hikeologist-in-Chief M J Simpson says at the end of his 10,000-word review on planetmagrathea.com - one might be tempted into declaring the long overdue film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a masterpiece just to spite the Forbidden Planet tendency, writes Donald Clarke
In truth, the picture, which begins with the destruction of the earth and builds from there, is really not too bad. Martin Freeman, so impressive as Tim in The Office, has just the right sat-upon fortitude for suburban everyman Arthur Dent; the special effects have a clunky, old-school feel that sits nicely with the cosy humour; and the animated extracts from the Guide itself, narrated mellifluously by Stephen Fry, feature quite a few pleasing visual gags. Viewers unfamiliar with earlier versions of the late Douglas Adams's science fiction comedy - launched as a radio series in 1978, then expanded into books and a TV series - will probably like it well enough.
But, much as I hate agreeing, even in part, with the obsessives, it is hard to deny that a great deal has been lost in translation. Having waited a quarter of a century for the right screenplay, the producers could surely have done better than this cluttered compilation - credited to Adams and one Karey Kirkpatrick - of the best bits of the best bits.
The only coherent section of the film is the opening. Arthur's old friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def), who is, it transpires, from Betelgeuse, not Guildford, breaks the news to the hero that the earth is about to be demolished to make way for an intergalactic freeway. The two pals first hitch a ride on a Vogon destroyer. Then, after enduring their hosts' famously poor poetry, make alliance with the no longer properly two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell) and Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), a female earthling on whom Arthur once had a crush.
Though everything thereafter is frantic, poorly organised chaos, many of the fine jokes do survive undiminished: the answer to the ultimate question is still 42; man is still the third most intelligent animal on the planet. A more serious problem derives from all these Americans hanging about the place. Adams's universe - a frustrating bureaucracy run by tentacled jobsworths - always seemed to be situated several light-years down the eastern branch of the Central Line. Rockwell, Deschanel and Mos Def are just too damn glamorous for this more distant Epping.
Then again, the England that Adams was parodying has largely vanished anyway. First broadcast a year before the Winter of Discontent, Hitchhiker's was riddled with allusions to the inefficiency and lack of ambition that Mrs Thatcher, using the discarded carcasses of former factory workers as her broom, later swept into the English Channel. In 1978 Zaphod's mid-Atlantic vocal posturing seemed hilariously pretentious. Now, sadly, our daughters all upspeak (like this?).
The current Hitchhiker's, directed by Garth Jennings, one half of the talented pop video combo Hammer and Tongs, still carries flavours of this lost England. As a result, it feels quaint, outdated and distinctly charming.
