Well, that's what the Head of Disney Corporation called it.

I caught the mega-fast train by the skin of my teeth - had to chat up a taxi driver for the £5 change required to park my car, then spent 30 seconds dithering on the platform worrying that

• (a) I couldn't remember stubbing out my last fag, so maybe I'd left it burning and would return to a heap of ashes and
• (b) Maybe I hadn't locked the car after sticking the pay and display ticket inside it, so if I didn't return to a heap of ashes, I'd undoubtedly return to find my car had been driven into a canal by a bunch of joyriding yobs.

1725 is not a good time to arrive in London without a clear idea of how to get from Euston to Leicester Square. I was walking against the flow of pedestrians and had to pop into every Tube station to check my progress against the street map on the wall, because OSH had hidden my new A-Z and I'd forgotten to bring my Multimap printout. I figured if I kept walking towards Centre Point and then veered right I'd probably find it, and I was right, although I had to check with a grumpy traffic warden at one point.

Of course, once I was there it was *obvious* - big signs all over the place, security cordon, check-in marquee, blue carpet, cameras and photographers. Gulp. I hung around for a bit in the square and ate my tea, before deciding I'd be more comfortable inside the cinema.

I'd spent all of Tuesday evening cutting out the letters 'h2g2 MOL' in gold fabric and tacking them to a large white bath towel, the idea being I'd fling this over me like a cape before stepping onto the carpet. My towel was folded neatly inside a Waitrose bag for life - and that's where it stayed. There wasn't a primping point inside the security tent, and that bit of carpet suddenly looked vast. So I scurried across it hoping that nobody was looking at me. They probably weren't, as they were still recovering from Bill Nighy's arrival a few minutes earlier.

Inside the cinema, people who clearly all knew each other were milling and chatting, so I took my seat and immediately found some fellow hootooers. We were all on the very front row... wow... of what was, at that point, a very empty cinema with souvenir towels on every seat. After a bit the screen stopped showing trailers for the film and started showing us what was going on outside... interviews with celebrities, the arrival of Rebecca Loos erm... it was rather surreal, actually, seeing what was going on outside, like having a huge window in front of us.

Eventually the Head of Disney took the stage approx 2m in front of me - I spread my towel out over my lap, but only because the air-conditioning was a bit chilly - and introduced all the producers (and there were lots) and directors and the cast. Robbie Stamp said a few nice words, Stephen Fry said a few funny ones and then the film started.

It finished just under two hours later, to tumultuous applause (I think that's the phrase) and then I realised that if I was really, really quick I might make the earlier train home. I hurtled into the Tube and down stairs and up escalators... and missed the train by about ninety seconds. Damn.

Didn't notice the speed of the train on the way home. I was asleep.

Well, the great thing about HH is that it's never been fixed - it's evolved a little with each new format, so you'd expect the film to be different too, and there's no point getting geeky about Trillian's hair colour or the Vogons only being in it for the poetry. I do wonder how much of it will make sense to anybody who hasn't read the book (or heard the radio series or watched the DVD etc etc) though.

For those of us that have, there were nods in the right direction with some little, significant details which will mean nothing to the vast majority. The twin suns of Magrathea, for example; two of the original TV cast turn up unheralded in new roles; the jewel-encrusted crabs.

The graphics for The Book, and Stephen Fry as the Voice of the Book, were excellent. That bloke from The Office (a programme I was unable to watch, owing to its toe-curling realism, so to me he is That Bloke from Hardware) makes an excellent Arthur Dent... although rather *young*... but then, I'm no longer a teenager watching the story of a middle-aged man, but a middle-aged woman watching the story of a young man. Heart of Gold excellent, all the major characters excellent, Vogons superb (they are The Baddies so we see quite a bit of them), it's a good film.

Excellent, even.

The best bits are the new bits and the bits that have been done differently. The most amazing sequence is the factory floor at Magrathea, which is mind-blowing. The Vogons. Deep Thought revealing The Answer is done differently and it works. Zaphod's inner head is a clever solution, much is made of towels, the effects of Infinite Improbability Drive are very funny, and the worshippers of the Great White Handkerchief are pretty good too.

But.

The weird bad guy with the metal legs; not sure what's going on there.

There's a syrupy love theme, of the sort which had me wondering if Richard Curtis had managed to get himself onto the script-writing team.

And Marvin is terrible.

He doesn't trudge, he potters. He's too round. His voice is too camp. He just doesn't quite do it like his previous incarnations. The only line of his which worked for me was a completely new one - the others were lifted directly from other HHs, or slightly re-hashed, and it didn't work.

Interestingly, the original TV Marvin appears at one point as an extra and his 'here's one I made earlier' look does at least serve to show that a new design was needed for this film. And I can imagine that a team of people slaved for weeks to come up with what we see on screen. It just doesn't quite look... or sound... as I think it should.

On the plus side, the doors are very, very good, so the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is faithfully depicted in one respect at least. But not in Marvin, which is a shame.

We don't get as far as the Restaurant or the B Ark, although we do end up on a restored planet Earth (cleverly done). The tea machine is in there, although not quite in the starring role it deserves, as is Eddie the shipboard computer (original personality only and he doesn't sing When You Walk Through The Storm either - there is a lot of graphicky stuff going on and failing to steer the Heart of Gold, which isn't as good as Eddie counting down the impact time and bidding everybody farewell.

What I liked most... and despite this nitpicking, I did enjoy it as a film... what I liked most was the fairly modern theme of what an amazing place we live in. It connects back to What a Wonderful World in the original and expands on it. This new HH still has the capacity of the original to make us think.

Interview with Robbie Stamp
Watch the Premier on your computer media player¹.

Mol

28.04.05 Front Page

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