HHGttG

[cellio]

Pico-review: some fun bits, but spend an extra hour and a quarter and a few more dollars (unless you rent) and watch the TV series instead. The movie wasn't awful, mind, but neither did it live up to its potential.

The movie struck me as more a homage than a stand-alone offering. There were references that were half-there, which is enough if you've read the books (or seen the TV show or heard the radio show) and meaningless otherwise. I wonder if those bits of time could have been better spent, in one direction or the other.

The original story (in any of its myriad forms) is more episodic than the movie, in that individual sections stood alone and not everything had to obviously fit into the Big Story by the end of the half-hour. The movie tried to make over-riding themes obvious and, well, over-riding, perhaps because they only had two hours. But in some cases they missed the mark IMO; the recurring bad guys in the movie struck me as a distraction rather than an enhancement, though there were some cute bits there.

There were lots of cute bits; I definitely laughed out loud in places. ("Zest." Hee hee.) The density of fun/clever bits wasn't as high as I had hoped (or remember from other flavors); it felt like there was a lot more padding in the movie.

(On the one hand I shouldn't judge the movie in comparison to the other forms; I should judge it on its own. But on the other hand, the makers of the movie know that most of their viewers will have that background, so it's not entirely unfair to take it into account.)

I do not particularly mind the assorted minor plot changes, because every retelling of the story has involved some of that. And Douglas Adams wrote the script, so one can hardly argue that people are butchering his vision of the story.

I talked to my father recently; he saw the movie and had not had previous HHGttG exposure. His reaction was pretty much "eh". I told him that the other forms were very good and I was looking forward to the movie, but now that I've seen it, I have to agree with his assessment. Eh. Not bad, not great; I'm not longing for my two hours back, but perhaps I should have caught a matinee. And I should lend my father either my radio tapes or my tape of the TV show.

Trailers:

• Zathura: During the trailer I was thinking of Home Alone with a fantasy twist; at the end they said it's from the people who did Polar Express. I'm guessing that this means it's really for kids and that there won't be a second layer for adults, but I'd be happy to hear that I'm wrong.
• Valiant: Carrier pigeons dodge evil falcons to save humanity. Looks like fun animation and maybe not much story. Can't really tell.
• Shark Boy and Lava Girl: If it's a riff on comic books then it could be fun, but from the trailer I infer that it's more of a "heartwarming" children's story that just uses comic-book heroes as a plot device. What exactly do they think HHGttG's demographic is?
• Pink Panther: Looks like a respectable version. I didn't care for the originals myself, but that's just me. One of these trailers is not like the others. :-)
• Herbie: Ok, this looks like fun! Now that's closer to pegging the demographic!

I was kind of hoping for a War of the Worlds trailer. I figured fantasy, SF, alternate realities -- should be a no-brainer. Unless, um, it's too early? I've lost track of when that's coming out.

Hmm, why are they called "trailers" when they come before the movie?

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

I went to The Interpreter Monday, and got a preview for WotW, which I thought a bit odd, since what I was seeing was not at all SF. The trailer was violent enough that I thought it was for something else entirely, which makes it unlikely I'd go see it in theaters.

[cellio]

Thanks for the information. If all they did was graft the name onto a random shoot-'em-up-with-aliens movie, I'm not interested.