The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

After a long and tortuous road, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (hereafter H2G2, the semi-official abbreviation) is finally a feature film. The compression of a wildly popular novel into a two-hour motion picture predictably set Douglas Adams fans in mortal opposition to one another over whether the film is any good or not. Unlike a typical hyperbolic Adams scenario in which the two factions would wipe each other off the face of the Earth to the benefit of the rest of mankind, the end result has been a lot of pointless nattering and a lot of wasted web space.

Far closer to the truth than the plaintive fanboy complaints that Adams' legacy has been defecated upon or the opposite claims that this picture is the best thing ever to come from the franchise is this idea: Adams himself would likely have enjoyed seeing his characters come to the screen in one of the liveliest science fiction universes ever put to film. He especially would have enjoyed cashing the royalty checks. Alas, Adams left the Earth far sooner than anyone would have liked, so we are left to evaluate it in his absence.

If you haven't read the books you will be at something of a disadvantage, but if you have a sense of humor you won't be lost. The film begins much as the book does, as Briton Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) begins his final day on Earth -- not because he will die, but because the planet won't be around much longer. Arthur is rescued from the Earth's disintegration by his friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def, an inspired bit of casting) -- who turns out to be a journalist from Betelgeuse. From there it's an interstellar roller coaster ride as Arthur encounters aliens, true love, and the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

About halfway through the story, the film departs radically from the source material and introduces elements that will throw Adams purists for a loop. These new story elements -- in essence, a re-imagining of the original story -- are the source of the whining and gnashing of teeth, but I found them a welcome addition to the H2G2 pantheon. After all, we've been exposed to the radio dramas, the books (five of them, and of varying quality), a television series (which should have long ago satisfied the fans who wanted a faithful screen adaptation), an illustrated coffee-table book, and a video game, all of them comprising much the same material. Is it really such a crime to bring something new to the table -- to give new life to old characters? Admit it -- you always wanted Arthur to hook up with Trillian, and now, in this alternate-fantasy version of the story, he gets his chance. (My eternal gratitude to whomever cast Zooey Deschanel in the role. Brilliant!)

"The chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied," the improbably named Slartibartfast (Bill Nighy) tells Arthur. "I'd far rather be happy than right any day." Though there are many signs that Garth Jennings and Karey Kirkpatrick (the director and writer) have an abiding love for the original material in all of its forms (the appearance of the original Marvin costume in a crowd scene is a dead giveaway), it doesn't take the calculating power of Deep Thought to figure out that any attempt to film H2G2 was going to displease some number of fans. Wisely, they opted to make the picture that would make them happy, rather than attempt to make it "right."