This is a book-cum-movie review since I read The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy not too long before the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy came out.
Douglas Adams is funny in a very British way and I like Brit humor. So I found both the book and the movie hilarious. If you ask, however, which I liked better, I would have to say the books.
The Ultimate Guide is said to be a “trilogy” but it contains 5 books. All were good except probably for the last one named Mostly Harmless which got a bit strange in an un-funny sort of way.
The movie was also good. I am not a purist about such things, so I had no problems with the differences between the radio show, books and the movie. Plus hitchhiker’s guide already has lots of versions. But there are a couple of saccharine movie moments which are very unlike the spirit of the radio show or the books. Also, the two heads of Zaphod Beeblebrox were not handled very well in the movie. I would have preferred the two heads to be visible together. I would rate the movie an 8/10.
I loved the books many years ago when I first read them. In fact I read them over and over again because I enjoyed them so much. Of course I went to see the movie when it came out and found it amusing. Unfortunately, my wife didn’t become the raving HHGTTG fan after seeing this as I was hoping. I had been grateful she came to love the LOTR books and the X-Men as much as I did (the movies made a big difference) … but I guess two out of three isn’t bad. [As we all know, the purpose of these movies is to make geeky stuff cool]
danithew: My wife loved LOTR, X-men and HHGTTG movies but still refuses to read the books. 🙂