So I finally found some breathing room and watched the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy today. As an avowed Douglas Adams afficionado, there’s a lot I could quibble with - my main gripe would be that Eddie never tried to make tea - but on the whole it was a pleasant enough amalgam of the first and bits from the other books. (If there really is a sequel, I’m dying to see the talking cow and the Total Perspective Vortex.)
Not much to complain about the acting. Martin Freeman is perfect as Arthur Dent - a sort of reprise of his Tim role from “The Office”, always somewhat bemused and bewildered - while Mos Def is a cool Ford Prefect not given enough to do. (They ironed out Ford’s occasional prickliness.) Marvin was bigger than I’d imagined him - in my mind, Marvin’s about the size of R2D2 - but he was great. Big gripe about Zaphod Beeblebrox - I really wanted his two heads to be side-by-side, which would’ve been cooler anyway. And I always saw the Babelfish as a huge-ass fish that was flapping in the ear incongruously…
My main gripe would be that while it’s “pleasant enough”, “pleasant enough” is a far cry from the laugh-out-loud, rolling-on-the-floor-laughing nature of the books. There’s a reason H2G2 references permeate the technical world - from “answer to life, the universe, and everything” on Google to Babelfish…
As usual, everyone headed for the exits once the credits appeared, but I figured there’d be more so I sat there and was rewarded by an amusing little bit on how Arthur’s final words caused a major intergalactic spat.
That damned “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” song is ringing in my head now.