I went and saw the "Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy" film last night.
I went with some trepidation after seeing some pretty bad press about it (planetmagrathea, MirimarMike).
Overall, it's not that flash, but I still enjoyed it, and stepped out with a smile.
Most of the chuckles I had throughout the film were not to do with the plot or the few "new" lines, but more from the joy of recognition of the fun elements from the radio show.
I was totally irritated by the casting of Zaphod, and the opening scene where the house was due to be demolished was, frankly, crap. Comparing the construction crew for the bypass with that of another by-pass a little closer to home made it look ludicrous. In one scene, an actor (as a worker) was enthusiastically raking some gravel with a pitchfork, god knows what he thought he was doing.
I know they can't reduce the whole Hitchery-hiker "thing" into less than 2 hours of film, but be prepared for nothing more than a glorified love story about Arthur and Trillian with a love-sick vice-president of the universe (female .. and portrayed as pathetic, with absolutely no back-plot) pursuing Zaphod with an army of Vogons. It seems that, after having spent money on the Vogon suits, they must have decided to keep using them later in the story like a bunch of Triffids.
There's also a thing where they meet up with the John Malkovich character (I didn't catch the character name), and he basically ransoms them to go get "the ultimate gun" ... This looks like the point in the plot where Douglas Adams left us, because the whole plot thread is left hanging, making the (not very good) earlier sequence, totally pointless!
Not complete crap, just bad, but when did that stop a fan(atic) from going anyway!