“High Concept Fare With a Large Dose of the Bizarre”

What would you do if a fleet of bulldozers showed up on your front lawn and you were handed a legal document stating your house was to be demolished to make way for a new highway? Better yet, what would you do if you knew for certain that you only had two more minutes to live before the earth was wiped out by greedy aliens bent on destroying our planet to make way for a new intergalactic express route? If you choked on a popcorn kernel reading that last one, take this as your cue to run, not walk, out of any theater showing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the new sci-fi romp based on the best-selling book by Douglas Adams.

However, if you’re stout of heart and can stomach the vile behavior and hideous appearance of the sumo-sized bureaucrats named Vogons (or endure several minutes of their torturous poetry), you might just be in for an amusingly whimsical, albeit bizarre, journey through the warped and unpredictable reaches of outer space. In any event: “Don’t Panic!” And whatever you do, don’t forget to bring your towel.

Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is the hapless, witless soul who must sacrifice his house on the altar of progress, but fortunately, his good friend, Ford Perfect (Mos Def), is not from our world and beams himself and Arthur onto the Vogon mothership just before it makes meteorites out of the earth. Escaping the rusty, grimy Vogon ship is a death-defying task, but Arthur employs the wisdom of the wickedly satirical Hitchhiker’s Guide and he and Ford are soon floating free in space. Did you know that it’s possible to survive in space for a few seconds by holding your breath? Either did I.

Fortune, again, smiles upon Arthur and Ford as they’re beamed aboard a friendly vessel that just happens to be in the vicinity. The stolen, spherical ship belongs to the President of the Universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell of Galaxy Quest fame), who has two heads/personas, a manic depressant robot named Marvin (voiced by another Galaxy Quest alum, Alan Rickman), and a girlfriend named Trillion (Zooey Deschanel), who had a brief fling with Arthur in the not too distant past. Beeblebrox is on a mission to visit mythical world, Magrathea, but along the way he runs into his campaign opponent, John Malkovich, who makes a brief appearance as the priest of a sneezing cult. Ultimately, Malkovich’s character is just a grace note in the zany script and his presence is utterly superfluous, as he never appears again in the film.

When the party finally reaches Magrathea, they discover the super-computing oracle, Deep Thought. In the distant past, Deep Thought cogitated that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. Now, after pondering for eons, Deep Thought will reveal the “ultimate question.”

If all of this is a bit difficult to follow (or swallow), it’s because Adams’ story is dense and shallow at the same time. The story’s aliens, customs, planets, etc. are all well thought-out and fully realized, but the character development is spare and many plot elements are bizarre, ludicrous or obnoxiously random. Here are just a few examples: Dolphins, the third most intelligent species on our planet, have been trying to warn us of our impending doom for years, but we’ve misinterpreted their attempts at communication as playful flips and tricks. On the Vogon homeworld, giant flyswatters pop up out of the desert sands and smack unsuspecting travelers in the face (the scene is actually pretty humorous). An omniscient being—who just happens to have a spare earth sitting around—tells Arthur that it’s mice, not men, who really rule our world. My favorite oddity, however, is the “Improbability Drive,” an obvious poke at Trek’s warp drive, which spews the ship out into alternate realities—the “yarn universe” sequence is nothing short of genius.

For all its inherent strangeness, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has several saving graces—it’s witty, clever and wildly imaginative. This makes the movie viewable, if not instantly accessible. It will be interesting to see if Hitchhiker’s ticket sales will permit us to visit The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Rating: 2 1/2

Tags: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-fi