My friend, Brett, insisted that I see this movie, however, and loaned me the book a week before its release. Although it is a quick read, I took just over a week to read it and missed the opening weekend. The book is enjoyable, not for its storyline or characters which are nonsensical and boring, but for its writing style. Adams has a way with sentence construction that seems to come from left field and is remarkably funny. For instance, my favorite line in the book is a sentence describing some big spaceships that come to earth. He writes that they "just hung there in the sky, much in the same way that bricks don't." Thus, although I couldn't care less what was happening or about to happen in the book, I kept reading on just for the humorous phraseology.

Another example of such verbiage comes with his description of how "God disappeared in a puff of logic." He describes that since God requires faith and faith requires the absence of proof, and since there is a such thing as a babelfish that translates any speech pattern into the user's native language which seems to prove that there is a God, that God does not exist. I was amused by such philosophical meanderings, but it is troublesome how Adams seems to have a disdain for philosophy and religion alike. I can also see how it might be offensive to many of faith. In any case, the "puff of logic" was amusing to me.

Unfortunately however, Adams writing style, of which I had grown so fond, is lost on the big screen. Instead, what we have left is the nonsensical and boring storyline and characters that I personally could care less about. To summarize quickly, we have an Earthling, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, whom you've never heard of), whose best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def, whom you've probably never heard of either) is really an alien and who helps him to hitch a ride on a spaceship seconds before the entire Earth is demolished in order to make way for an interstellar bypass route. Thus starts their journey through the galaxy as they run into nasty Vogons, a vain, two-headed President of the Galaxy named Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), and a depressed robot named Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman whom we've seen as Professor Snape). Gone are the funny sentences and most of the witty dialogue (such as when Ford Prefect convinces the foreman in charge of tearing down Arthur's house to take Arthur's place lying down in front of the bulldozer for a bit while they go for a quick drink).

Making up for some of this, however, is Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox. His character is somehow a cross between George Bush, Elvis, and Johnny Bravo. I thought he was very funny and this movie may be worth watching just for him. There were also some additions to the storyline, including the kidnapping and eventual rescue of Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), Arthur's and Zaphod's love interest. This helped to give some sort of point to the story, but in my opinion they went too far with Trillian's character and her relationship with Arthur which kinda made this movie morph from a wacky space adventure into a sappy love story. Finally, the best NEW thing introduced by the movie was the lightsaber knife that is able to slice bread AND toast it at the same time. This was awesome and hilarious.

In the end, however, I'm afraid that, in regards to this movie, instead of having the eternal optimism of Zaphod, I'm left with the utter despair of Marvin. Thus, if you asked me whether or not you should see this film, I'd probably answer, "What's the point?"

Only worth seeing if you're a HUGE fan of the books and/or possibly for Sam Rockwell's performance as Zaphod Beeblebrox.