‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ better on the page

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In theaters

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, directed by Garth Jennings, written by Douglas Adams and Karey Kirkpatrick, based on Adams’ book, 110 minutes, rated PG-13.

Garth Jennings’ quirky sci-fi space parody “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” begins with a mass exodus of dolphins vacating Earth because the planet, they’ve learned, is doomed. With a quick flick of their tails, they soar into the moonlit heavens, thanking all of us for the free fish before disappearing into outer space.

Cut to Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), a likable loser fighting to save his house from certain demolition because of the highway bypass about to cut through it. Dumbstruck, Arthur stands outside his home in his ratty bathrobe, incapable of stopping the pending doom because, really, he doesn’t have the moxie to jump in front of a charging bulldozer.

Enter his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), who confirms that Earth will indeed be blown to bits by the Vogons, a grotesque alien race who look like Della Reese crossed with Jabba the Hutt, Angelina Jolie and a prehistoric fish. How does Ford know this? Because he himself is an alien, something Arthur didn’t know, not that he has time to process that information now.

With the press of a button, the Vogons obliterate Earth, but not before Arthur and Ford have hitched a ride aboard their ship. And that, as you can imagine, causes its share of problems, particularly after they connect with Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), a young wanderer Arthur favors; Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), the high-strung, two-headed galaxy president currently dating Trillian; and Marvin (voice of Alan Rickman), a woefully depressed robot whose biting asides steal the show.

As written by Douglas Adams and Karey Kirkpatrick from Adams’ popular book and BBC radio play, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is an uneven movie with limited appeal that exists on the fringes. It won’t enjoy the cult status of the book, but that won’t surprise fans of the book. Adams’ tale was always better suited for the page and for the imagination than for film – a literal environment in which whimsy and satire, when not done correctly, can struggle to connect onscreen.

What’s missing here is a sense of purpose that balanced the book’s anarchistic lunacy, an irreverent wit that doesn’t feel as if it has to sell itself on center stage. The book was free to be what it was, but the movie, while encouraged to do the same, seems compromised by the medium. You can feel it straining to capture the book’s freedom.

And yet all isn’t lost here. Individual scenes can be riotous, the film’s originality is a lark considering we’re now in a movie season that favors safety over originality, and the acting is strong. John Malkovich is nicely creepy as a legless religious guru with an ugly agenda, and Bill Nighy, that great character actor of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Love Actually,” is just right as Slartibartfast, a bemused alien whose perceptive comments about the meaning of life and the universe help to pull together the end of this “Galaxy” with unexpected finesse.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

NATIONAL TREASURE, directed by Jon Turteltaub, written by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley, 120 minutes, rated PG.

The big, overblown wazoo of absurdity that’s unearthed in John Turteltaub’s “National Treasure,” which has been No. 1 at the box office for three weeks now, is exactly what fans of its producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, expect – a ripe, ridiculous B-movie served up with generous helpings of cheese.

The movie finds Nicolas Cage ending his current run of satisfying movies – “Adaptation,” “Matchstick Men” – to make a film that will make him and his studio money.

He succeeds. To date, “National Treasure” has made $110 million, well on its way to becoming the most financially successful movie of Cage’s career.

One hopes those returns will allow the actor to return to the sort of quirky character roles at which he excels. In the meantime, we have “Treasure,” which finds The Walt Disney Co. applying its formula to U.S. history with predictably far-fetched results.

In the movie, Cage is Benjamin Franklin Gates – insert groan here – whose family has been trying for generations to find the buried treasure of the Knights Templar. Allegedly, on the back of the Declaration of Independence is an invisible map that offers a series of clues that will lead Cage and his assistants to a colossal bounty.

Since Gates wants that map before thieves get to it first, complications and machinations ensue, only a few of which – remarkably – deal with the actual theft of the declaration itself.

Considering the security involved, that’s extraordinary, but ripping off the document nevertheless proves the least of Gates’ concerns. Along with his goofy buddy, Riley (Justin Bartha), and a come-hither conservator played by Diane Kruger (“Troy”), he must outwit a group of mincing bad guys led by the Euro-trashy Ian (Sean Bean, also of “Troy”), whose tossed golden locks are so well appointed that they make Cage’s dyed plugs look uncomfortably obvious onscreen.

The action scenes in “Treasure” are passably entertaining and the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, but maybe it should have. Nothing here is extraordinary and nothing matches what Spielberg created in the “Indiana Jones” movies, which “Treasure” tries to emulate. For a fresh blast of adventure and fun, “The Incredibles” is still the film to beat at the movies.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Alfie – C-

Bad Education – A

Being Julia – B+

Birth – B+

The Chorus – A-

Closer – B-

Collateral – B+

Cursed – C-

Darkness – D+

De-Lovely – B

Elektra – C-

Ella Enchanted – B

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – A-

Exorcist: The Beginning – F

Finding Neverland – C

Flight Of The Phoenix – C-

House of Flying Daggers – A

The Incredibles – A

Kill Bill Vol. 2 – B

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events – B-

Maria Full Of Grace – A

Meet the Fockers – C

Napoleon Dynamite – B+

National Treasure – C-

The Notebook – B+

Ocean’s Twelve – C-

The Phantom of the Opera – C