Review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The BBC mini-series may have had a low budget, but overall it was excellent and captured the essence of the story wonderfully, which this film doesn't. The source material is so good, and deserves a much better movie and adaptation than this misfire.

The only redeeming merits are some of the effects, costume and set design(apart from the villains which were too grotesque and the Vogons look silly) and the performance of Martin Freeman. Joby Talbot's music is both good and disappointing, good in the sense of how well it is composed, disappointing in how it fitted with the film's moods.

My biggest beef of the film is how much the cast is wasted. This is a great cast. Helen Mirren? Alan Rickman? Bill Nighhy? Anna Chancellor? Sam Rockwell? Sterling actors, but wasted by quite a number of components, Rockwell especially is made to go over-the-top and it doesn't work at all.

So what was wrong with this movie? A lot of things is the correct answer. The book is so good, but impossible to compress into a 2-hour movie. I try not to be a purist, but this adaptation is far too condensed and pivotal elements are lost of their meaning and some especially the romance are shoe-horned and feel superfluous.

Other flaws are the confused storytelling, the tedious pacing, the embarrassing dialogue, characters that are devoid of any complexity and turned into walking clichés and less-than-mediocre direction.

All in all, a sad mess. 3/10 Bethany Cox