The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I have had Douglas Adams' famous book in my library for a long time, right next to the Red Dwarf series. While I revisit Red Dwarf in both TV and book format, and it still has a pleasant charm for me, I haven't been able to read the literary masterpiece that is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" yet due to lack of time. Considering how negatively the movie affected me, it will gather dust for a while. It probably won't be months, but years, because the film left me with a desperately humorless, and even repulsive impression. The potential was there, but something went wrong; it needed a much more experienced filmmaker than the debutant Garth Jennings. Overall impression: 25%. (03/15/2017)

Quite decent considering the possibilities. I was fascinated by “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” (the book, the first part), but by “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, Adams’ style had saturated me already. I watched the film after reading the book and there’s a lot of the book in it, all the main jokes are there, but a lot of things are different… I think it could have been done better, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how I would mix fidelity to the source material and changes in order to produce a film that would be convincing on its own. One way or another, it would surely result in some absurd hybrid that everyone would perceive differently. (07/29/2011)

I haven’t read the book, so I liked it much more than most people (who have read it), so I will have the last laugh when I get around to reading the book, because I will relive the fun while the rest of you had to suffer the (supposedly) less funny hundred and nine minutes of the movie. Ha Ha Ha. P.S.: Marvin rocks. (01/18/2013)

I really enjoyed this humorous sci-fi and it reminded me that I would like to read the book version sometime. Excellent cast, as the meeting of Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy in one scene was absolutely electrifying thanks to their acting abilities. Otherwise, it is a clever and entertaining sci-fi with excellent actors, even in voice roles. (11/27/2014)

I didn't expect that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be so well adapted. And yet! The screenplay sticks to the book as lovingly as it can, and when it adds something new to it that (perhaps) Douglas Adams wouldn't have thought of, it's completely Adamsian, funny and feels natural. In short, you can tell that the film was made by people who really wanted to make it. This is also true of the actors, the absolutely amazing set design, which combines Jim Henson's puppets (the Vogons as the living) with charmingly colorful computer effects that would surely suit, say, a full-length Red Dwarf in the future (I still haven't given up hope), and the playful music. The only flaw is the completely incomprehensible failure to explain the fundamental importance of the towel. I didn't mind, as a loyal reader I would have taken at least two towels and forty-two other backups to hitchhike through the universe, but the uninitiated viewer must surely have wondered "What the hell do they keep doing with that?" (02/29/2016)