Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book," as the movie states. And it's true! Douglas Adams' vision of life after earth is one of uproariously hilarious escapade after escapade. Since its inception, the story has undergone many changes as it adapted itself to a variety of mediums: radio program, TV show and even a small video game. And when it came to this plot-changing, the movie was no exception.

There's no question that in order for any successful book to make it to the big screen there must be a few changes and compromises - this is nothing new. And this is not to say that changing the story is a completely horrible idea. In fact, the love story between Arthur and Tricia McMillan was well conceived and Zaphod Beeblebrox, the sub-plot of a man trying to find the Ultimate Answer and himself in the process, was a decidedly interesting side-step. In fact, the only problem in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was the fact that they clung so tightly to obscure references in the book which only the devoted fan base would have gotten.

For example, Ford Prefect (which, by the way, is an excellent, unorthodox performance by Mos Def), seems to be obsessed with towels. He searches for a towel in the rubble of Arthur's house before calling on the Vogon ship to beam them up. He tells Arthur that, in order to survive in this world, you need to know where your towel is. When Zaphod is hit with the point-of-view gun by Ford and is suddenly seeing the world through Ford's eyes he says, "Towels are good!" Ford uses his towel to fight the thought-crushing creatures on the Vogon home-world. The average watcher sees this and thinks: "What's this all about? Ford is weird. This movie is weird." But the devoted Hitchhiker fan would instantly recall in the book where it is explained that the towel is the most useful thing a hitchhiker can carry with him across the galaxy, for, when spotted, if a non-hitchhiker sees that you have a towel he is more likely to pick you up because he assumes you also have such other commodities as a toothbrush, soap, toilet paper, etc.

This is just one example of many throughout the movie. The point is that this movie is more fully enjoyed by those people who have read and loved The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books first. Therefore, rating this movie is difficult. British humor is a beast all to itself. There are those who love it and there are those who just don't get it, and this movie chock full of it. In the end, if you enjoy British humor or you love the Hitchhiker books, you will love this movie. If you hate British humor and you've never heard of the books, please stay away. There's no room on the Heart of Gold for you.