Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I had yesterday off from my new temp job (apparently, I got more stuff done this week than they'd expected, so they said they needed until next Monday to have more stuff ready for me to do), so after dropping off my time-card for the hours already worked this week, I put the pedal to the metal and did my best to get to the other side of town in 10 minutes flat to see the early matinee of the movie "Millions". I was about 15 minutes late for that (even with most of the lights working for me, that's still a long way to go on surface streets on a Friday afternoon), and since the ticket guy said it had only 10 minutes of previews, I decided not to walk in late.

Not to worry, though: there was a showing of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" that would have just started the previews. So, I got to see the tail end of the final "Star Wars" movie trailer (again!), and got to see the "Serenity" movie trailer for the first time! Yay! And yippee! And a rousing, "Huzzah!"

And then there was the film itself, which I thoroughly enjoyed! Having just recently re-watched my old VHS copy of the TV-version of "Hitchhiker's" to refresh my memory, I was hoping for something a little more surprising than just the same script with better special effects, and I got it. A fun movie that would not be inappropriate for most kids to view (very surprising, these days), with plenty of visual in-jokes for those familiar with that TV version and the novels, plus an opening production number and snappy theme song that sent me out of the theater singing the title of another book in Douglas Adams' 5-volume trilogy for the next few hours!

I don't know what NPR's Elvis Mitchell (or whoever it was I heard reviewing the film on "All Things Considered" last night) was thinking of, to pooh-pooh this film as too mild and kid-friendly to be entertaining. I enjoyed every minute of it, partly because -- after the early scenes, which followed the novel and TV versions pretty closely -- it kept throwing me a few loops and surprises (mixed in with the more familiar story elements and characters), some of which I recognized as being drawn from later books in the "trilogy" and some of which I didn't recall at all (and admittedly, not all of those new gags worked, but . . . the overall average was still darn good).

And as for Ebert & Roeper's outright dismissal of the film on their review show this week, this just confirms for me that I should stop taping that show and just make up my mind to see whatever movie I feel like, whenever I feel like it (except that sometimes I would never know about some of the independent and foreign films making the rounds if I didn't watch their show, so maybe it's worth all the annoyance they cause me with their oh-so-male "You-just-don't-get-it!" reviews some weeks).

From the old TV version, I recognized the original "Marvin" costume in the background of a 'dealing-with-Vogon-bureaucracy' crowd scene, as well as Simon Jones (who played Arthur Dent way back when) as the friendly "nobody's-home-right-now-so-go-away-or-we'll-shoot-you" automated message of the planet Magrathea. From the novels, I recognized little touches like the Vogon captain's chair being shaped like one of those graceful gazelle-like creatures that were indigenous to the Vogon's planet until the Vogons sat on them and broke their backs, plus the jewel-encrusted shellfish that the Vogons liked to smash for fun. And then there was the fact that I'd swear the actor playing Zaphod Beeblebrox this time around was the same guy who played "Guy," the expendable-extra-or-plucky-comic-relief character in the movie "Galaxy Quest".

Also from the books, it seemed to me that in this film the character of Trillian had been in some degree combined with that of the girl from the small cafe in Rickmansworth who suddenly figured out what it was that had been going wrong all this time, etc., but got blown up with the rest of the planet Earth before she could tell anyone, and who then, when she re-appeared on the re-built Earth mark II, was haunted by the need to try to recover that illusive moment of enlightenment, or at least to read God's final message to creation, if all else failed. Just an impression.

And though I'm pretty sure that this film won't appeal to the "Intelligent Design" folks (since the creation of the earth in this film, as in the novels, begins with a great computer and a bunch of soon-to-be-mice and the great planet-building shop floor of Magrathea), I did notice that the "Babel Fish as final proof for the non-existence of God" bit had been left out. Too bad -- that was always one of my favorite bits!

Finally, my favorite new line from this movie? (Aside from the entire lyrics to "So Long, And Thanks For All the Fish", of course!) Probably has to be Trillian's scornful response to having the "point-of-view" weapon turned on her: "That won't work on me; I'm already a woman!"

I have no hesitation in recommending this as a fun movie outing. It may not be the definitive film interpretation of Douglas Adams' work, but then, is such a thing even possible? I might go see it again, just for the sake of the song alone!

Oh, and it's worth your while to sit through all the end-credits, because there's an adaptation of a classic "Guide entry" that doesn't show up until the tail end of the closing credits.