For all its huge sets, high-tech glitz, and CGI effects, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fails to capture the deadpan drollness of the Adams novels.
Finally, there's everybody's favorite character from the books, Marvin, the paranoid, depressed, and largely bored robot ("Life...don't talk to me about life"). He's supposed to have a brain the size of a planet, which nobody ever asks him to use, an idea the filmmakers latch onto to create a short, cutesy-poo being whose head looks like a giant smiley face with sad, droopy, triangular eyes and obviously no smile. The filmmakers were no doubt influenced by Touchstone Pictures, meaning Disney, meaning cute. In the movie, Marvin is a cross between R2-D2 and C-3PO, small and cuddly but forever moaning and complaining. If you recall, Disney couldn't be restrained from creating a similarly precious little robot in "The Black Hole," effectively scuttling all hope of that venture being anything but a children's film. Warwick Davis is inside the robot suit, and Alan Rickman provides him a perfect voice; now, if the robot had only looked like Rickman, too, the character might have been more effective. Oh, well.
Despite my reservations about some of the casting and some of the wayward gags and the whole thing sagging by the end, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," as I've said, manages to win its share of smiles. Maybe that's all that counts in the long run of galactic timetables.
Video:
Here's the thing: Buena Vista transferred the movie to disc in anamorphic widescreen to THX specifications, yet it still doesn't look as good to me as it should. A check of the bit rate indicates that BV used more compression than they could have for optimum picture quality. The original 2.35:1 aspect ratio is rendered fairly closely at about 2.21:1, and there is very little noticeable grain. But while the image is bright enough, there is a soft, vague appearance to it, with darker areas looking somewhat murky, and more than a few moiré effects, shimmering lines and pixels. I would have preferred that Buena Vista had transferred the movie to DVD at the highest possible bit rate and left the bonus materials to a second disc. Maybe if we wait long enough, they will. Or not.
Audio:
The audio fares much better than the video, coming to us in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 Surround. In DD 5.1, there are strong dynamics, a powerful impact, a robust bass, a pleasant musical ambiance, and plenty of rear-channel effects. Comedy or no, this is still a modern sci-fi flick, and it's important to the spectacle to have a soundtrack that does it justice. This one does. You'll hear spaceships, bulldozers, laser blasts, alien voices, and all sorts of strange and wonderful noises coming at you from all directions.
Extras:
The major bonus items are a pair of audio commentaries, the first by director Garth Jennings, producer Nick Goldsmith, and actors Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy; the second by executive producer Robbie Stamp and a colleague of Douglas Adams, Sean Solle. Of the two commentaries, I thought Stamp and Solle's was the more interesting. They are less talkative than the other group, yet in their own way they're more entertaining, more intellectual, and more informative. It's less of the "Here's the logo" business and more of the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking, as well as more of a backstage look at the book, the author, and the author's themes.
In addition to the commentaries, there is an eight-minute featurette, "The Making of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," wherein the director and stars praise everything about the movie; a brief additional entry from the "Hitchhiker's Guidebook"; three fake and two authentic deleted scenes that I couldn't tell apart; a Sing Along of "So Long and Thanks For All The Fish" where you follow the bouncing dolphin; and "Marvin's Hangman," a word game that uses Marvin the Robot as the central character. Marvin remarks upon your progress and loses appendages each time you miss a letter.
The extras conclude with twenty-four scene selections, plus a chapter insert; a THX Optimizer set of audiovisual calibration tests; and Sneak Peeks at eight other Buena Vista titles. Along the way, the menu allows you to click on an "Improbability Drive" that directs you to goofy, seemingly random snippets from the film. English, French, and Spanish are the spoken language options, with French and Spanish subtitles and English captions for the hearing impaired
Parting Shots:
Viewers who appreciate low-key British humor will find an abundance of it in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy." But you'll have to suffer through a good deal of tomfoolery and not a few dead spots to find it. In the long run, the film is pretty tame; a little more daring might have been in order.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is...42.
Despite my reservations about some of the casting and some of the wayward gags and the whole thing sagging by the end, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," as I've said, manages to win its share of smiles. Maybe that's all that counts in the long run of galactic timetables.
Video:
Here's the thing: Buena Vista transferred the movie to disc in anamorphic widescreen to THX specifications, yet it still doesn't look as good to me as it should. A check of the bit rate indicates that BV used more compression than they could have for optimum picture quality. The original 2.35:1 aspect ratio is rendered fairly closely at about 2.21:1, and there is very little noticeable grain. But while the image is bright enough, there is a soft, vague appearance to it, with darker areas looking somewhat murky, and more than a few moiré effects, shimmering lines and pixels. I would have preferred that Buena Vista had transferred the movie to DVD at the highest possible bit rate and left the bonus materials to a second disc. Maybe if we wait long enough, they will. Or not.
Audio:
The audio fares much better than the video, coming to us in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 Surround. In DD 5.1, there are strong dynamics, a powerful impact, a robust bass, a pleasant musical ambiance, and plenty of rear-channel effects. Comedy or no, this is still a modern sci-fi flick, and it's important to the spectacle to have a soundtrack that does it justice. This one does. You'll hear spaceships, bulldozers, laser blasts, alien voices, and all sorts of strange and wonderful noises coming at you from all directions.
Extras:
The major bonus items are a pair of audio commentaries, the first by director Garth Jennings, producer Nick Goldsmith, and actors Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy; the second by executive producer Robbie Stamp and a colleague of Douglas Adams, Sean Solle. Of the two commentaries, I thought Stamp and Solle's was the more interesting. They are less talkative than the other group, yet in their own way they're more entertaining, more intellectual, and more informative. It's less of the "Here's the logo" business and more of the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking, as well as more of a backstage look at the book, the author, and the author's themes.
In addition to the commentaries, there is an eight-minute featurette, "The Making of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," wherein the director and stars praise everything about the movie; a brief additional entry from the "Hitchhiker's Guidebook"; three fake and two authentic deleted scenes that I couldn't tell apart; a Sing Along of "So Long and Thanks For All The Fish" where you follow the bouncing dolphin; and "Marvin's Hangman," a word game that uses Marvin the Robot as the central character. Marvin remarks upon your progress and loses appendages each time you miss a letter.
The extras conclude with twenty-four scene selections, plus a chapter insert; a THX Optimizer set of audiovisual calibration tests; and Sneak Peeks at eight other Buena Vista titles. Along the way, the menu allows you to click on an "Improbability Drive" that directs you to goofy, seemingly random snippets from the film. English, French, and Spanish are the spoken language options, with French and Spanish subtitles and English captions for the hearing impaired
Parting Shots:
Viewers who appreciate low-key British humor will find an abundance of it in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy." But you'll have to suffer through a good deal of tomfoolery and not a few dead spots to find it. In the long run, the film is pretty tame; a little more daring might have been in order.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is...42.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]16399[/release]