Alien ant farm

Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre June 27 2005

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Directed by Garth Jennings
Based on the book by Douglas Adams
Written by Karey Kirkpatrick, Douglas Adams
Starring Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def
G/ 110minutes
Buena Vista International

At last a movie with almost no references to sex, barely any violence, and incomprehensibly irreverent it’s just few meters outside hilarious and miles away from boring. I’d say there is a God, but then we all know it.

Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, from Love Actually and the original The Office) wakes up one day to find out his quaint English home is about to be demolished by Public Works to give way to a freeway. His recent friend Ford Perfect (Mos Def) appears in time, not to help save Arthur’s lonely home, but to rescue the Englishman from the impending obliteration of earth by interstellar bureaucrats called Vogons. The worthless planet earth was to be zapped to give way to hyperspace express, much like Arthur’s home. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Anyhoo, Ford reveals to Arthur his alien identity just before the earth is Death-Starred, and they hitch a ride with one of the Vogon spaceships. On the ship, Ford presents to Arthur a smart book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which explains in whole or in part (but always in lovely animation) the whats and wherefores of the entire galaxy – in short, the encyclopedia galactica for dummies. The Vogons discover the hitchhikers and eject them into the void of space.

Just in time, a cute spherical ship called The Heart of Gold absorbs the duo onboard. There Arthur reunites with a lost human love, Trillian (Zooey Deschanel) who has then become the shipmate of Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), an alien with two heads and three arms. Zaphod happens to be the newly-elected President of the Galaxy, and his first presidential action was to commandeer (read: steal) The Heart of Gold (how very us.)

With his home planet destroyed, his best friend an alien and the love of his life taken by an alien president chased by poetic Vogons, there’s no one for Arthur to ask for sane human relief. The spaceship’s robot Marvin (performed by legendary dwarf Warwick Davis) won’t be of any help either – it’s too depressed and cynical.

Hitchhikers Guide is a mishmash of goofball adventures and absurd gags I’m reminded of that quintessential British satire Monty Python and that Hollywood spoof Galaxy Quest. Except here, the narrative lacks a definitive focus as if it has taken the Improbability Drive too many times. Don’t panic! Thank goodness for British design and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, this movie is alive with wonderful visuals, colorful aliens and commendable acting. Note that John Malkovich is in the movie and Alan Rickman voices the severely depressed but incredibly cute robot Marvin.

I’m quite sure the parents of actor Mos Def named their offspring after the vile spaceport of Tatooine, Mos Eisley (Star Wars, remember?) It’s not surprising he’s playing the role of a space-trotting alien, but what on earth is he really doing in our planet anyway? Presumably for research, but what he’s really researching on, the movie didn’t bother explaining. Bugger yourself. Like it or hate it.

It may be condescending to declare this a smart, witty and thoroughly wry comedy, but it almost is. It’s British.

On one hand, it’s nearly two hours taken away from this crazy world, it’s almost refreshing to be brainwashed by something a little less worthless than political bickering. Then again, that’s nearly two hours taken away from life’s more productive moments – yadayadayada, and all that mumbo-jumbo about careers and self importance.

Oddly, it’s a surprise to understand that the engineers of the universe are presented in the movie as Creationists, without any predilection for evolutionary empiricism. Haha! I’m a geek.

And so The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ponders on the most important questions in life, at some point shouting that the quest for happiness is the ultimate of human needs. Brazenly, it offers a specific answer to those questions no known existentialist has done so succinctly in earth history.

The answer to everything, it almightily declares, is 42.