Barboelsch

I only heard about this movie more than 30 years after it was filmed. Luckily, I was able to pick up a DVD that contains the 'Director's Cut', meaning all footage still existing has been put together to form the entity.

I'd watch Star Wars and LotR even if those were bad movies, just to see Christopher Lee. Yet him in his first major as Lord Summerisle was...

Wait!

Oh, man, this is about that abominable Neil LaBute flick with Nicholas Cage and stuff?!?

Cripes!

Hell, yes, there's one thing about it, that's not totally f**ked: Amongst all futile USish attempts to remake European (specially British) movies, The Wicker Man is only the worst but one: The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the one failure to exceed it in miserability!

When first I heard that there would be a Hollywood-made 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide' movie I thought: this can only go wrong.

When I learned that they casted Ford Prefect with a Negro, I knew: it MUST HAVE gone wrong.

Please take a minute to read my explanation aimed at the salvage of political correctness: The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is purely genuine British stuff. Even though in London there they have Lenny Henry and they have Don Cheadle and they have Lennox Lewis, still, County Surrey (in which at least the Earth's part of the story is to take place) is sort of a place in which blacks don't come natural. Why is this important? Because Hitch-Hiker's Guide is not about traveling in space and it is not about meeting aliens. It is not about shooting ray guns nor is it about time travel. It is about being English, and nothing else. Seeing a US gangsta rapper playing Ford Prefect immediately indicates, that the British thoughts behind it have been americanized (basically, not grasped, that is). That's why I knew it HAD gone wrong.

What I saw, though, introduced a whole new meaning of the word 'wrong'. Pretty much every cool thought of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide books was minced into some please-everyone-who's-IQ-resembles-the-room-temperature kind of fashion with the result of pretty much nothing funny at all.

I recommend not to watch this movie by any means. It ain't worth nor time nor money.

However, it sported two and a half good things: the introductory Music's Banjo theme reminded me of something - and (yes!) it was the reprise of BBC's Hitch-Hiker's Guide TV series' main title. Secondly the original Marvin from the TV-series was reactivated for a cameo in the scene where the protagonists queue in some Vogon public office. The remaining half is Stephen Fry as 'The Voice' - knowing that they would have hired Peter Jones had he still been alive.

Thanks to Tim Burton's Batman (1989), I will always be in a movie theatre when there's a new Batman feature shown, even though with the set of sequels the subject gradually declined from Batman Returns (which was unnecessarily bad) down to Batman and Robin (which was bad enough to be reason for a law suit).

Anyhow, Batman Begins is different in the sense that it is actually good. The plot is plausible, the acting is convincing, the story is enthralling with a nice twist towards the end (as usual I was the last to expect that) and they have the coolest Batmobile by far. It remains to be seen, though, how Batman would be satisfied with the subsequent Batmobile models.

But the coolest fact of 'em all is, that the Gotham City Cops drive Mercs throughout the film! Unless, of course, I was so tired I mistook a Hyundai XG for a real Mercedes (I watched the 12a.m. - Midnight - special Preview, and all this on a school night).

Summary: if you watch this movie, you won't regret it!