managed to get free tickets to a preview screening of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I wasn’t expecting it to be great, or even close to the book.
It was brilliant.
Absolutely fantastic, and far better than I was expecting. I had seen bits and pieces, and thought that the black Ford was a concession to tokenism, Zaphod’s hidden head was a cop-out, and there would never be the budget to do justice to Adams’ book. How wrong could I have been? The books have never been my very favourites, but they’re funny and witty and clever, and I enjoyed them when I read them, a while back – but if anything, I preferred the film. And it’s not often I say that. I really hope it’s a smash hit.
It deserves to be. I was wrong about Ford and Zaphod – they’re brilliantly cast, more interesting than they were in the books, and the two heads work very well. Alan Rickman’s a superb Marvin, Stephen Fry’s voice couldn’t be better suited to the guide itself’s surreal humour, and Bill Nighy’s Slartibartfast was somehow daft yet venerable at once. Best of all, though, were the cameos, the peripheral characters: how they got Helen Mirren to be Deep Thought I’ll never know. Bill Bailey’s whale was one of the film’s highlights (poor thing), and best of all (even better than the cameo from the original Marvin) were the League of Gentlemen’s Vogon extras. ‘He’s got a towel – run away!’ ‘He’s locked it from the other side – we’ll have to go around the other side’…brilliant.
Visually, the CG and puppetry were outstanding, really top-of-the-range stuff, which I didn’t expect. The music was great, too, especially the updated theme. All in all, it couldn’t have been much better.
Hope there’s another. They’ve ruined all the surprises, but I wanna see the restaurant!
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