HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

REVIEWED BY SHANNON H.

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: evolutionary themes, mild profanity and sensuality

Rated:

Science fiction fans may have read the novel by the late Douglas Adams titled A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and enjoyed the exploits of unexpected space travelers trying to find the meaning of life, as well as gather information for a new edition to a book with the same name as the novel. It has been made into a couple made-for-TV films for British television (Douglas Adams is British) and now it is a motion picture.

Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), an average, everyday kind of guy, is seen getting up and getting ready for his day. As soon as he starts brushing his teeth, he notices that there were loud sounds being made outside his home.  He goes outside to investigate only to find that there were bulldozers surrounding his house. The construction foreman tells Arthur that they are going to bulldoze his home to make way for a new interplanetary highway. Arthur protests this by saying down in the pathway of the construction equipment until his friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) stops by to tell him that the world was going to end. Ford also tells Arthur that he lived in Earth for 15 years and prior to that, he was a space alien (Arthur thought he was an out-of-work actor). After chugging a couple pints of beer as their last earthly drink, the two hitch a ride onto a neighboring alien spacecraft where Ford tells his friend Arthur that he's gathering information to write a new edition of the book "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Arthur, still in his pajamas, bathrobe, and holding a towel, is still angry because his home had to be bulldozed and Ford still had to remind him that the earth was now destroyed.

Unfortunately, the spaceship they landed on belonged to a grotesque alien race called the Vogons. Arthur and Ford were soon captured and were tortured by having to listen to one of the Vogons recite poetry (according to the hitchhiking guide, Vogon poetry is the third worst in the world). After that, they were catapulted into the vacuum of space, they were not expected to survive but by chance, they landed into another space ship where they met the zany and arrogant Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), the president of the Galaxy, and his earthly girlfriend Trillian a.k.a Trisha McMillan (Zooey Deschanel), whom Arthur met at a Halloween party months ago but never got a chance to hook up with her. Also on board was Marvin, a robot with severe, clinical depression.

Once everyone is acquainted with one another (Ford knew Zaphod as an old friend), Arthur "the Earthman" learns the ropes about life in space and and how bad the Vogons really are. They travel to a couple of planets, one in particular called Magrathea where no one is alleged to have lived there for 5 million years. All through their zany adventures, Arthur and Co. learn the meaning of life, alien intelligence, and why the earth was blown up. Still, Arthur's feelings for Trillian (formerly Trisha McMillan) start to grow when Trillian finds out how much of a jerk Zaphod really is. The film is rated PG but toes the line between a PG and a PG-13. It's implied that Zaphod and Trillian have "shacked up" together on a spaceship. Zaphod tries on Trillian's underwear just for kicks. Arthur goes into the bathroom for something and accidentally runs into Trillian in the shower (only her shoulders are seen). There are three uses of the word "hell" (and a bleeped out F-word in the DVD outtakes). There isn't much Christian content. The film points out that mankind is a 5'11" ape creature. There are some viewpoints as to whether or not God exists (in the hitchhiking guide, one space author was considered controversial for writing anti-God literature). There is a scene where some priest named Humma Kavula (John Malkovich) is seen leading his congregation into prayer to some higher being named Arkleseizure. 

I liked the film to a certain extent. It was funny and it stayed true to Douglas Adams' book as much as possible with the exception of a couple of scenes and sub-plots (the scene with Humma Kavula is not in the book but was a part written especially for John Malkovich). However, it is still lackluster, being the fact that it wasn't side-splitting hilarious. Mos Def is terribly miscast as Ford Prefect because he just couldn't act the part (I expected some mad-scientist type).  ne of the good parts of the film is the catchy song at the beginning, sung by dolphins who allegedly were in a plot to test the intelligence of humans ("So long, so long, so long and thanks...for all the fish") as well as a part of the film where a whale falls from the sky and asks the ground to be friends with him before he is killed on impact. Hitchhiker is funny for those who like science fiction or who, like me, have read the novel but be wary of some of the evolution themes of the film.