This review lark seemed a good idea until I realised, I am going to try a give you a plot overview of this one. Well it will be an overview a one liner overview unless I think really hard about it. OK let me get you my usual generic intro for starters. Released in 2005 this movie stars Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Anna Chancellor, John Malkovich, and the voices of Stephen Fry, Helen Mirren, Thomas Lennon, Richard Griffiths, Ian McNeice, Bill Bailey and Alan Rickman. It was made on less than $50m and went on gross $104.5m at the box-office. Which means $$$ in everyone’s eyes. Based on a book by Douglas Adams who was involved with the pre-production work before his death in 2001. Which I assume was where the rights were being agreed and Douglas had put some suggestions forwards one of which come to fruition in the shape of Stephen Fry being the voice of the guide book itself. I have given it a bit of thought and will give you the introduction of the story.
Arthur Dent is at home in his pyjamas and dressing gown with a towel on his shoulder. When a demolition crew arrives to destroy his house to make way for a by-pass. A friend of his Ford Prefect arrives and convinces him to go to the pub. Over a few pints Ford explains that he is an alien and that the earth is about to be destroyed by a race called the Vogon’s who are going to destroy the planet to make way for a space highway. The Earth’s destruction is planned for later that afternoon. Ford rescues Arthur by stowing himself and Arthur on one of the Vogon spaceships. Arthur is disturbed by the destruction of his home planet. Ford explains he is writing for the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ and let Arthur see a copy. They are soon discovered and thrown out of an airlock where their luck continues where they are rescued again by a Star ship called the Heart of Gold. On board is Ford’s semi-cousin who has recently become the President of the Galaxy and a girl who Arthur encountered at a party years ago. The crew is completed with Marvin the depressed robot. They go off on many adventures that are so Douglas Adams random thought pattern and humour. That’s enough to get you going.
The story has done the rounds as after the book the BBC turned it into a weekly radio show. Which was so successful it was turned into a TV show which is where many people of the UK would remember it by and this show will be the definite version. Even though the budgets were so low and the space ships where clearly stuck together with superglue and stick back plastic. This may explain why my score was the highest of the three with IMDb giving it 6.8/10 and Rotten Tomatoes less than that with a 60% score line. Why do I like this most than most then? Well it gives the whole story in one place as I was probably too young to fully appreciate the TV series and dipped in and out of that. The radio shows pass me by completely and the book(s) has never been in this house so I’ve never read it either. So, this is a good bookend version of the story. Its highlighted elements of the story that I hadn’t noticed before and was god enough for me to possibly give the book a chance once I stop writing and start reading again. This was a funny movie although I prefer the TV’s version of the two headed President, but saying that I prefer this version of Marvin with Warwick Davis and voiced by Alan Rickman. That combination is always going to win isn’t it? This is stupid funny and entertaining the Vogon governmental structure of red taped bureaucracy at it worst of completely the right form and in triplicate just to be told it is not the form you actually need for the action you want to do. The planet of reducing independent thought was funny with the boards whacking you in the face every time you thought of something. For me this was funny enough to pass an evening and explained the story better than any other snippet here and there I’d seen before.
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