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Loopy
brilliance: Rockwell in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to
the Galaxy.
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It’s
a Silly Universe, Really
By Laura Leon
The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Directed
by Garth Jennings
No doubt there will be le- gions of Douglas Adams fanatics
out there who will find fault with each and every facet of
the new movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
These are the sort of fans for whom nothing less than absolute
literal translation is acceptable, and who, truth be told,
probably know far too much about the Hitchhiker radio
series, novel, play, even computer game, on which Adams built
his cult phenomenon. I am reminded of too many RPI students
I used to know who would take up residence at tables in the
Rathskeller, pizzas, beers and materials textbooks at hand,
to watch what seemed like a continuous loop of original Star
Trek episodes. The thing was, as I discovered one eerie
night, the sound wouldn’t be on, and yet the students would
be mouthing the dialogue. . . . If you spoke aloud, you were
hushed in a way that left no doubt: These geeks meant business.
So, like those Trekkies, there will be much gnashing of teeth
by Adams fans who have carried the torch for so long, through
the untimely death of Adams a few years ago at the tender
age of 49, to see the cinematic culmination of their admiration.
Then again, for the non-Adams initiates, there might be some
wonderment, glee and downright confusion. Any way you look
at it, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which
is directed by Garth Jennings, is a sort of celluloid lightning
bolt.
Let’s just say that if you don’t get too bogged down trying
to piece together a completely coherent plot, you should be
thoroughly entertained and kept slightly off-balance. Mopey
Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is just about to lose his house
to the progress of super byways when his friend, Ford Perfect
(Mos Def) drags him along for an intergalactic ride; just
in time, too, since the world is being destroyed courtesy
of the whims of one President Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell).
After battling it out with the dreadfully bureaucratic Vogons,
created masterfully by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Arthur
and Ford actually come into contact with Zaphod, who just
so happens to be traveling with Trillion (Zooey Deschanel),
the girl poor Arthur let get away back when there was an Earth.
The four band together, along with a perpetually depressed
robot named Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman), in search of,
well, all sorts of odds and ends, but mostly, for the meaning
of life, the universe and everything. This brings them into
wild adventures with a giant computer (voiced by Helen Mirren),
Zaphod’s disgruntled former political rival (John Malkovich),
white mice, point-of-view guns and what-have-you.
Centering the chaotic story are strong performances, particularly
by Def, who imbues Ford with a balletic grace alongside a
cunning wit, and Rockwell, who seems to be channeling a certain
Texas-by-way-of-Yale cowboy. There’s a loopy brilliance to
their riffs, a looseness that seems both natural and inspired,
a definite counterbalance to the too-studied cool of so many
movies these days. Freeman, with his elastic features and
stuttering cadences, is an amiable everyman, and Deschanel
once again scores with an appealing blend of brains and innocence.
Screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick, who shares that credit with
the late Adams, has done an honorable job of translating what
would seem patently untranslatable. The movie, like the book,
is goofy and ambling, employing quite a few visual techniques
without making it seem like it’s solely for the purpose of
techno wizardry. And while it may lack the sense of urgency
that so many films actually need, Hitchhiker deftly
uses its relaxed pace and unstudied hipness to evoke the quasi-spiritual
nature of the Adams books, and in that way, fans and fanatics
alike should find peace.
Once
Was Talented
XXX:
State of the Union
Directed
by Lee Tamahori
With the silly, creaky XXX: State of the Union, director
Lee Tamahori is scraping bottom. Once a promising talent from
New Zealand (Once Were Warriors), Tamahori quickly
went Hollywood, hiring out to The Edge and Die Another
Day. Yet despite his experience with franchise actioners,
Tamahori is a total dud with this sequel to the cheeky, flashy
Vin Diesel vehicle XXX, which at least had some nifty
action sequences and a new point of view: Positing a man of
color (OK, a man of some color) as a new-model James
Bond. State of the Union goes further, promoting a
black man, played by Ice Cube, to the position of XXX, rogue
operative for the NSA. But with his stubbornly endomorphic
physique and cuddly face, Cube just ain’t action-hero material,
no matter how deeply he furrows his brow into a scowl. And
his growling line readings quickly become tiresome, since
he only has two facial expressions: annoyed, and more annoyed.
Xander, Diesel’s insouciant daredevil-turned-agent in the
original, got himself killed on duty (that’s code for Diesel
turning down the sequel), necessitating the recruitment of
a new agent, Cube’s Darius Stone, who is ready, able, and
willing “to go off the grid.” The ability to go off the grid—which
is apparently the physical equivalent of “thinking outside
the box”—is highly prized in State of the Union, but
for all its talk of anarchy and attitude, the film is numbingly
formulaic (and if sheer bitchiness were all that’s required,
why not just hire Lil’ Kim?).
Aside from a total disregard for logic, the only twist to
the plot is that the espionage is domestic. When terrorists
invade a secret NSA headquarters, renegade Agent Gibbons (Samuel
L. Jackson, reprising his role from the original) suspects
an internal subterfuge. So he springs Darius out of prison,
where he’s been sharpening his attitude for nine years following
a court marshal for insubordination. The film sets Stone and
his homies from the mean streets of D.C. against the right-wing
tightasses at the Pentagon. The lead tightass, and a possible
saboteur, is a Rummy-like general played by Willem Dafoe.
The general is in conflict with his dovish commander-in-chief;
the president is played by senatorial ’70s character actor
Peter Strauss, who is back in fine form (so fine, in fact,
that in a fistfight between Strauss and Harrison Ford as the
president in Air Force One, the smart money would be
on Strauss).
There’s an amusing (in concept at least) tank jacking by a
chop-shop crew, but mostly the film misses the opportunity
to have some fun with the notion that the disreputable, inner-city
minorities that Darius enlists to defend the White House are
the same demographic that have always defended America’s security—usually
by serving as cannon fodder. The dialogue is so lame and obtuse
that even the verbal duels between Jackson and Dafoe—two of
the most intimidating voices in Hollywood—are not quite the
auditory pleasures that they should’ve been. None of this
would matter if the action were up to the brainless but thrilling
standards of the original, but it’s not. The climactic sequence
puts Darius behind the wheel at 200 mph along the Potomac
in a laughably junky CGI homage to video gamers that will
leave all other audience members yawning. The only thing going
off the grid in State of the Union is Tamahori’s career.
—Ann
Morrow
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