Le guide galactique

This is a good and faithful recreation of Adams' brilliantly sketchy radio series. Not surprising as Adams wrote the screenplay and was on the verge of having his dream realised when he suffered a fatal heart attack. A fitting credit at the end of the film "For Douglas" serves as a gentle reminder of the genius we have all lost. As for the film, many of the original and wonderful lines thankfully remain and the plot is largely unchanged. There's a new character or two written in for the film by Adams himself and they add to the overall story. John Malkovich is great albeit very briefly as religious leader Humma Kavula. Sam Rockwell, Mos Def and Martin Freeman all carry off their characters with wit and style whilst I felt Zooey Deschanel looked a little out of her depth. At times her dialogue seemed to get lost and her character seemed weaker than Sandra Dickinson's interpretation in the radio and TV series. Bill Nighy marries his own idiosyncrasies into the character of Slartibartfast seamlessly. Simon Jones makes a welcome cameo appearance as a holographic warning system. Stephen Fry steps well into the shoes vacated by Peter Jones as the "Guides" voice and you feel as if you are in safe hands. The "Guides" animated sequences are wonderfully reminiscent of Saul Bellow and though simple they are hilarious. For a feature directorial debut Garth Jennings does a grand job. I was half expecting the pop video influence to be apparent, but thankfully it wasn't. Lastly but not leastly a special mention has to go out to Jim Henson's creature workshop, this is probably the best work they have ever done in a feature, and that's saying a lot, given their success.