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But revisiting it now on video, one has to say..."Yeah, nice job spiffing it up a bit." Of course, all it may take for you to like it might be the inclusion of your favorite bit from the radio play/book/mini-series (in which case, I was satisfied--they included the sperm-whale bit, which I always thought was a fine, cheerful/melancholic distillation of life), and since it's a very breezy encapsulation (see first graph) odds are you might feel the loss of a passage or three. Still it's a nice forest, even if a few of your favorite trees have been culled.
The stand-out is Sam Rockwell who plays Galaxy President Zaphod Beeblebrox as W. with accelerated ADD (and isn't that a terrifying concept), and one has to admit that the filmmakers came up with a nifty solution for the two-head problem (Zaphod has them) that has plagued past productions. And you couldn't ask for a better beginning to the film.*
All well and good.
Zooey Deschanel is a bit creepy as Tricia/Trillian (but then, she'd have to be),** and there's an extended segment with John Malkovich which might have gone under the knife to include a couple more Guide entries, and the ending's a bit neat and tidy for an Adams adaptation, but really, I can't complain (except for that last bit), and the advanced design by Jennings and CGI-wizardry-gone-bizarre are full of little surprises right to the last jump of the Improbability Drive.
Cheerful and friendly, while chirping about dark, dark things,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a nice addition to the ever-expanding Library of all-things-Adams.
Now if they'd just do "Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
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