Well, as a total fan of Adams' Hitchhiker Trilogy (now comprised of five volumes) of course I was waiting eagerly for this. Not eagerly enough to catch it opening weekend, natch, because waiting in line for movies, or paying EXTRA not to have to stand in line for tickets, never appealed to me...but Mr. Otter and I got out to see it as soon as we could.

Many years ago, we read the first three books to each other in the car, commuting back and forth over a particularly nasty twisty stretch of road...there was one night, coming home late, when we reached the part about the Cathedral of Hate and were both laughing so hard that the car nearly went off the road.

And I've made it a happy habit to reread them every few years, whenever I need a laugh. The previews looked good, and we were both ready to laugh our respective butts off at one of the funniest movies EVER.

Except, of course, it wasn't.

Now, I totally agree with the changes they had to make to create a coherent narrative...the last time anyone tried to actually recreate the book, it was 1981, special effects were in their infancy, and the whole thing was hours long...but it was FUNNY.

Whereas, after seeing this movie, I turned to Mr. Otter and said, this movie was almost, but not quite, exactly unlike the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And he agreed with me.

There were many things to be said in favor of this movie: the cast was excellent, for one, although why they put in so many Americans is beyond me, Brits are much funnier at this sort of thing...but anyway. Martin Freeman is the PERFECT Arthur Dent, understated and pretty clueless. We were pleased to see Otter Family Favorite Actors like Anna Chancellor (who will forever be known chez Otter as "Duckface") and Stephen Fry as the narrator.

The special effects were excellent, especially the Guide, which indeed was very friendly and easy to use. And the planet construction scene was, as intended, amazing.

But. The ONLY THING in the WHOLE MOVIE that made me laugh out loud was the opening theme song (which we loved and sang to each other all day). Now, that's pretty sad, for a movie made from the funniest books EVER, that the funniest thing in the movie is something that wasn't actually in the books...

They really tried hard. They knew people would be extremely picky and not willing to give up their favorite scenes and lines even in the quest for cinematographic continuity (and if you think that's easy to type at 10:30 am, think again, took me three tries...). It just wasn't funny. Mildly amusing, whimsical, interesting...but NOT FUNNY.

Sigh. Adams was given credit for the screenplay, with Karey Kirkpatrick (whoever that is) but since he died four years ago, that probably means that Kirkpatrick used the radio scripts as the basis for the film script.

Anyway. If you're a fan, you'll have to see it...but don't expect too much.

And just for the record? I really, really didn't like how they did Zaphod Beeblebrox.