In the long run, the film is pretty tame; a little more daring might have been in order.
Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the conceited idiot President of the Galaxy, looks like he's from another picture entirely, more absurd than funny. He appears to be patterned after Michael Keaton's character in "Beetlejuice" (hence the name) but to less amusing effect. Likewise, Zaphod's rival, John Malkovich's Humma Kavula, is more bizarre than amusing. Malkovich does have one good, awe-inspiring scene in which he reveals himself as not quite all there, literally, but other than that he's just kind of creepy.
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:
The 1080p Hi Def picture is presented at 2.40:1 aspect ratio, and compared to other Blu-ray pictures I've seen (and I've seen around 60 different films on Blu-ray thus far) I'd give it fairly high marks. Though it's a little washed-out looking in spots as John remarked of the SD release, I think it's a deliberate attempt to give it the kind of sterile, futuristic look we've seen before in previous sci-fi and speculative films. Though the black levels and color saturation don't seem to be as strong as they could be, the amount of detail is still very good, and the picture itself is consistently clear and sharp.
Audio:
The strong dynamics John noted on the standard disc version are here on Blu-ray too, with lots of Foley effects lighting up the rear speakers. There's a great distribution of sound across the room, so that it fills the space with cross-directional bleeps and blasts. The bass is booming and the treble bright but not tinny. The chief audio option is English 5.1 uncompressed (48kHz/16-bit) audio, with additional options in English, French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish.
Extras:
Included on the Blu-ray are both audio commentaries from the standard disc release. Like John, I felt that the one with executive producer Robbie Stamp and Sean Solle, a colleague of Adams, was the better one because they provided insight into the book and the author and the transformation to film, whereas the commentary with director Garth Jennings, producer Nick Goldsmith, and actors Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy was more typical: here's how we did this shot, the lighting was a problem here, here's who we hoped to get for this role, etc. Missing from the SD release is the short praisefest masquerading as a making-of feature, a dolphin sing-along, and the Marvin's Hangman game (too bad the game wasn't included-this was, after all, a novel aimed at juveniles, and still holds great appeal for children). What is included? The three fake deleted scenes and two deleted ones, which are typical of deleted scenes, and an additional guide entry, "The Man and the Fish" that's also pretty cursory in its information and appeal.
Once again, space seems wasted on a "Movie Showcase" which takes you to sections of the film that showcase the "ultimate in High Definition Picture and Sound." Can we please get past this sales pitch for Blu-ray and add a real feature in its place?
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.
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[release]20433[/release]