Celebrity critic Roger Ebert has a point about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The adaptation of Douglas Adams’ book is almost absolutely an inclusive experience. So, then, why does he even bother to review the film?
This is not the first time that he has admitted incapability, having pleaded ignorance regarding the Scooby Doo movie as well. Ebert is not obligated by his newspaper to review every new release. He has acknowledged that fact.
This means that he is either familiar with the majority of subject matter in movies or that these specific conversions fail as independent works.
So what does succeed as an independent work? A literal adaptation fails for me because of artistic redundancy. When The Da Vinci Code comes out, because so many people have read the book, an exact reproduction will be expected.
Afterwards, Dan Brown’s novel may disappear from popular interest since the lazier medium will prevail, as it is more accommodating. I am not a well-read person that can compare literature to cinema often, but I should hope that I could read a book after seeing the film and enjoy it on a different level than character and plot concerns.
I read Catch-22 and About a Boy after seeing their respective adaptations and both entertained separately. The latter book and its movie had the same story and focused on completely different topics. Mostly, I read authors who are not easily adaptable because they are idea driven (Vonnegut is not easily cinematic) or use language creatively (there is no perfect film version of Lolita).
Sitting watching Hitchhiker’s Guide, I figured it confusing for the audience around me. This does not mean that the movie is incapable of entertaining non-fans - I know a bunch unfamiliar who enjoyed it immensely - it means that I have little faith in suburban families with short attention spans. There weren’t so many inside jokes as there were witty throwaways easily missed by those looking for the slapstick and action. Parts of the movie are wildly appreciable to ignorant moviegoers: Sam Rockwell’s Zaphod is as mad as Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice; the visuals are respectably fitting, not overly ambitious nor languidly dismissible; the satiric points are appropriately intact and the added love story is not really as contrived as fans have argued. Still, the direction is a bit too quick-paced, the characters aren’t given enough individual concentration and specifically John Malkovich’s movie-only character is climactically deficient.
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Article comments
1 - TylerNewton
I feel sorry Ebert is closed-minded about other forms of H2G2. Can't he see that if hates this movie with a passion, and if people all over the world love Douglas Adams and his works, that while the movie fails he should check out all other forms of H2G2 before passing judgment on all of it?
I understand he reviewed it from a common-person POV. What will someone who knows nothing about H2G2 think? Frankly, it stinks from that POV. It even is pretty bad from a fanboy POV, and I'm a huge fanboy.
But since Ebert is mainly a film guy, he should, AT THE VERY LEAST, watch the first hour of the H2G2 TV series DVD. I'm sure he will not only like it enough to watch all 3 hours, but he'll find that he loves other forms of H2G2, just not this "ghastly" movie.
2 - Tom Johnson
This adaptation was really not all that bad. I read Ebert's review before seeing it and went prepared for it to be a letdown. And it partially was - the things that it did well, it did particularly well, and the things it didn't do so well were kind of embarassingly geeky.
As for leaving non-long-time fans confused, my wife, who has little or no knowledge of the series, followed along perfectly well, and may have actually enjoyed it more than I did - and I've read the books a few times many years ago.
But I do disagree about the love story - it was entirely contrived, and I had a very hard time believing Dent "knew" Trillian was the one after meeting her at some party, then losing her to Zaphod only a short time later. It's not that I can't believe that can happen in a film, it's that it isn't developed at all - she simply is "it," that is all, and we never see why other than a couple of jokes between them that they both get. Other than that, it just seemed like it was shoehorned in to add a romantic angle to the film, which really didn't need it at all.
3 - Eric Olsen
very interesting perspective - thanks and welcome FC!
4 - TylerNewton
Check out this link for the long review of the H2G2 by the main biographer of Douglas Adams. Be warned, it contains SPOLIERS, but it's a GREAT read AFTER you see the film.
You don't realize how much you miss AND how the movie makes no sense at all until you read this.
5 - Chris Beaumont
I read the book many moons ago, and do not recall many details. I enjoyed the film to an extent, it seemed very Python-esque. I also agree with Ebert. I feel part of making an adaptation is making it accessible to the non-fan who may not be terribly familiar with the original work. Reading the source book should not be a requirement to enjoy the adaptation. It is here that the film falters, there is so much that does not make much sense, I can go with it to an extent, but it seemed like there were necessary segments that were missing. Anyway, I enjoyed it, but not as much as I had hoped.
6 - Tom Johnson
I urge anyone reading the "review" by Adams' biographer, Simpson, do so after having thoroughly ingested a very larger grain of salt. The man is very, very biased, and no matter how many times through the "review" he asserted that he was viewing it with a fair eye, he most certainly was not. The guy wouldn't have been happy unless the film had been so faithful to the novel that it couldn't possibly have been seen in one sitting. Were it up to him, the film would have been so faithful to the novel that it would have been a turn-off to 95% of the movie-going audience out there. The point of this film was not to make happy that small percentage of die-hard, read-the-book-dozens-of-times fanboys. It was to present something that offered audiences the spirit of the series in hopes of both causing them to check out the books and to also inspire enough confidence that a sequel would be a logical idea. So far, it seems that is the case. The Simpsons of the world will never be happy with anything that comes out of this series. Luckily most things are not aimed at these unfortunately over-dedicated "fans."
7 - david alaimo
i'm sorry guys, but i don't think the movie did the book any justice.