Welverin said:
Tickets were handed out last Saturday at Zombie Planet, for our area. It was a showing at the very small Loews theatre in Rotterdam, NY. We made the mistake of showing up only 30 minutes in advance, so ended up craning our necks to ee from the second row. Still could see fine.
Here is what I think.
I'll start out by saying I'm a big fan of Hitchhikers. I have five books of the trilogy. I have read them several times. I own the DVD of the tv series and enjoy it. I have heard the entirety of the radio series once. I went into this movie expecting nothing. I had seen a couple of horrible reviews and know better than to expect the world of an adaptaion of a beloved book (or set of books).
Now, In a word, I'll sum up the movie. Wonderful. I'll do my best to give no spoilers outside of sblock.
The movie is beautifully done. The previews hype it up as an action film. It is not. It really is a comedy from the get go. Don't go expecting to see the books on the big screen. I'm happy they didn't do that, actually. They did that with the tv show. The rough plot of the first book is there, but there is much more as well.
What you should go expecting is for them to capture the essence of the books in the movie. They did this perfectly, in my opinion. For this movie to work, I feel you should be left at the end with the feeling that the galaxy is just a crazy place where lots of crazy things happen for no real reason. That is exactly how I felt. They picked a great cast, had a lot of the great little lines from the book, and even had some nice little cameos. Now, I love Alan Rickman in all things. He performs splendidly as Marvin. I also think Ford and Zaphod were wonderfully cast. After the movie, my friend James said, "I had never pictured Ford as being black, but it really worked." Zaphod is just this guy, you know? He's all about looks and definately lacking in the brains department.
[sblock]There is even a scene where the tv Marvin makes an appearance. Look for him. I also could have sworn that the tv's Slartibartfast was in the same scene. Maybe the guy just looked like him.[/sblock]
I think Douglas Adams would have been very pleased with how this came out.
I fully encourage everyone to go see this movie. I had lots of fun and will definately have to go again.
