I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular – but that’s just peanuts to the Hitchhiker’s movie…. It’s not even a good film if viewed as an original work: the characters are unsympathetic, the cast exhibit no chemistry, the direction is pedestrian, the pace plodding, the special effects overpowering (lots and lots of special effects, none of them funny mind you) and above all the script is amazingly, mindbogglingly awful.
MJ Simpson, Douglas Adams biographer, has posted a review of the new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie.
A few key quotes:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won’t believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular – but that’s just peanuts to the Hitchhiker’s movie. Listen.
. . . . .
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie is an abomination. Whereas the radio show, TV show, books and computer game are all recognisably variations on a theme, this is something new and almost entirely unrelated. It’s not even a good film if viewed as an original work: the characters are unsympathetic, the cast exhibit no chemistry, the direction is pedestrian, the pace plodding, the special effects overpowering (lots and lots of special effects, none of them funny mind you) and above all the script is amazingly, mindbogglingly awful. Oh, and they have taken most of the jokes out.
This is a terrible, terrible film and it makes me want to weep.
Wow. That’s some kinda bad. Watching the previews I cannot say I’m surprised. I can’t imagine making a decent hollywood movie out of a book where the best parts are the narrative digressions. But you’d think they could make one that would not utterly suck.
Fingers crossed that MJ’s wrong, but not holding my breath, I tell you.
Alas! There is nothing but despair.
Darn. Bummer….
I don’t care, I’m seeing it anyway, dammit.
I wish it were otherwise, but not even The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal could keep me away. Maybe the closest thing to pure good in me is my willingness to give any movie a chance, and after having been burned a jillion times. Pure idiocy, morelike, but I can’t help it. Laziness is my only defense. I wouldn’t have know there was a new HHG movie if you hadn’t blogged about it. So I can blame you! 😛
I’m afraid it’s true. The film has had all it’s intelligence sucked out, the higher brow jokes replaced with slapstick, and the story replaced with a mulshy messy romance-on-the-run affair. Dull, annoying, unfunny, and suffering from terminal Hollywooditis. I didn’t count a single one of my favourite one liners. This was so much of a disapointment.
Oh and the meaning of life isn’t 42. Arthur Dent realises before the end of the film that the meaning of life is really “love”… I really wish I was winding you up.
It is easier to get a drink out of a Vogon than a laugh out of this movie. It is unfunny, unoriginal, unwitty, unfaithful, unintersting,and utterly and completely unworthy of its title.
In fact, this production no more knows the point of the original BBC stories than a used condom knows the history of the Trojan war.
I think the worst part is that for those unfamiliar with the original will no more be inclined to buy the book than collect leaves to use for currency. I need a pan gallactic gargleblaster!