Last night, I interrupted my Nats viewing to catch The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the Drafthouse. This long awaited movie surprised me — it was okay.

Since I was introduced to the series by Erica, I have always maintained that a movie adaptation could only be great or really bad, so I was surprised when it was rather mediocre.

I did not like the pacing, particularly in the beginning. The jokes seemed rushed and not nearly dry enough; I expected it to be more “British.” The story was also different at times from the book, but that is to be expected. Author Douglas Adams changed the story for every different medium it seems, he was even worse than George Lucas’ Star Wars revisions.

I was not crazy about Martin Freeman as Authur Dent and I cannot say why. I was surprised by how much I liked Mos Def as Ford Prefect. Sam Rockwell’s was too — Texan for my taste, it was not what I thought of the character when I read the book. Two characters that did work for me were Marvin the Paranoid Android and Trillian. Alan Rickman was perfectly cast as Marvin’s voice. Zooey Deschanel was what I had in mind for Trillian — cute, but ultimately made very attractive by being so charming. I also have to give a lot of credit for the Vogons, which refreshingly were enormous costumes instead of being computer generated. The opening number was also good.

So, do I recommend it? No, not really. It is rentable, but waiting for it on cable is probably good enough. If there was ever a movie that needed to be made by Terry Gilliam, this was probably it. I will concede that I nodded off a few times, which had more to do with the late start time than the movie itself, so I may have missed a couple of parts.

If you have not read the book, do not see this movie, because ultimately, the book is much, much more rewarding.