|
Saw it yesterday. I'm of two minds about it really. it is not representative at all of anything that makes the books good, but at the same time it does have some merit as a film. I don't know if I'm alone in this interpretation but what I liked about the books was that everyone was always dismissive, if not hostile to Arthur Dent. That, as the protagonist he was not granted a special role in various characters' minds. It kind of flew in the face of what was happening in adventure novels of the time and I liked the whimsy of it. In this case though, suddenly he is the protagonist, with everything that entails. Trillian never really warmed up to him in the books, and he didn't "find love" I think until the third one (it's been a long time so I may be mis-estimating). So it was kind of a strangely personal disappointment to discover that for no apparent reason he is madly in love with Trillian (their interactions to date didn't really indicate any reason why he would be like this; her behaviour is mostly shallow and/or insane). Even more unlikely is that she reciprocates (for no reason at all really, except that he sops around her for the whole movie). This is total guesswork but my only theory is that Douglas Adams had been trying to have the movie made for so long that he made the script more and more "hollywood" every time he pitched it until we end up with this. The pacing is crazy-go-fast, with nothing being explained with any degree of detail. Towel use, magrathea, explaining earth's role more clearly, etc. I think that so much was cut that unfortunately Ford ceases to have any relevance as a character. If they could have gotten Arthur on a ship without him he could have disappeared and not really affected the film very much. Mos Def also had some kind of mush-mouth thing going on and I had trouble understanding him. Arthur was good actually. He didn't quite have that offended air of britishness to him that the tv show guy did, but he managed to fulfill the criteria of being constantly surprised and shocked. As I said earlier I'm disappointed that the universe isn't treating him cruelly all the time like in the books, but I guess that's a hollywood thing. I liked Zaphod a lot; I think they nailed the character almost perfectly. However every time one of his cg extra appendages appeared I would cringe. I don't know if I'm picky but the CG on his extra arm/head always looked fake as hell. Also he might as well not have been in the movie after losing the extra head, for all the use he gets. The lemon helmet was pretty pointless too, except as a cheap and not very funny joke/excuse to goggle and flail. Trillian is just a train wreck. Yes, okay eye-candy, but the character is written to be incredibly obtuse and unsympathetic. I don't think you're given even one single reason why Arthur should go ga-ga over her, aside from the physical. In the books she's unashamedly superficial yet intelligent, and here she's neither so we never really understand why she does anything that she does. And then she has a completely unconvincing 180 reversal as is so subtly introduced by the POV gun. The POV gun/malkovich thread was so bolted on I could still see the screw heads on the screen, and served to exist only to advance the pointless romance subplot. Martin won me over, as did the Vogons. I was hoping they'd have the scene where they try to talk the guard out of being vicious all the time but I knew it'd be too weird and long to film. The vogon poetry scene didn't really make an impact to me though, and I thought they were far more effective with their "new" material, though this could just be the incredible talent Henson studios displayed. Slartibartfast was perfect. He had that ideal kind of distracted, abstract air that someone who creates entire planets might have, especially planets with as many problems as the Earth has. At the same time he had a kind of servility that would come of being a mid-level employee in some enormous corporation. His speech during the Earth MK II tour is really one of the biggest highlights for the film for me. I loved the fact that he was dressed as a bank manager might be. The introductory song felt like it was taken from a monty python movie made 20 years ago, some last hurrah that they shouldn't have made because they're not funny any more. 2.5
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2005 14:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 02:29 |
|