The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I finally got around to seeing the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy yesterday. I’ve been so busy with other things that I hadn’t been able to see it until now. The local Odeon has already reduced the number of showings to one a day, but fortunately there is also a Showcase Cinema nearby that still had multiple daily screenings.

I first read the book as a teenager and more recently a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. It’s been 25 years since Douglas Adams tried to get the book onto the big screen, now his wish has come true, unfortunately he is no longer around to see it. I did find it quite a fitting touch that as the film finished the two words "For Douglas" were shown on the screen.
Anyone that hasn’t read the book may find the film a bit hard to follow. Two hours is not a long time to appreciate the unique humour of Douglas Adams, compared to the detail in the book, but it is still a good film.

The story is about an average person living in rural England, that has a bad day. A really bad day, a really really really bad day. First he finds that his house is to be demolished to make way for a bypass "We have to build bypasses, building bypasses is what we do". Only to then be told that his best friend is actually an alien and that the world is going to end. A short 12 minutes later and the world is destroyed to build a Intergallactic Bypass.

The special effects were excellant, and worked seamlessly. The only one I wasn’t that keen on was the way in which Zaphod’s second head was done, but the rest of the special effects were great.
The only negative comment I have about the film is that it ended too soon. It felt like you had only really got going by the time the film finished. Which has now left me really hoping that they continue and do the other 4 films in the trilogy. That wasn’t a mistake as the title page of the book says “The Trilogy of Five”.
If you haven’t read the book then I highly recommend it, preferably before seeing the film, but if not read it afterwards and suddenly it will all make sense, or it won’t make sense at all, but that’s just one of the great thing about Douglas Adams.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish …