Apples to Road Apples

Why Incredibles is better than Hitchhiker's Guide

Let's face facts. If you watch both movies, last summer's The Incredibles from Disney's Pixar studios and this spring's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from Touchstone, it's very hard to fail to notice that Incredibles is superior in every way. Why? Let's take a look.
To be quite honest, the jokes in Incredibles aren't that much better. Gazerbeam; Nomanisan Island; Syndrome; Dashiel "Dash" Par; Edna "E" Mode; these aren't classic jokes. They aren't jokes that people will repeat for decades to come. This ain't Who's on First. And yet the movie is damn funny (where appropriate) and damn tense (same).
Compare that to the source material of the Guide. People are repeating that stuff now, some decades later. People consider that a classic of twentieth century pop lit. An alarming lot of people spend an alarming lot of time reading and rereading the Guide series so as to have the lines memorized by rote. It's like Tolkein in that. People care a lot about the books.
And good on 'em.
But let's ignore the books (Yeah, I know. Why bring it up if you're going to ignore it? Why, to throw the hammers into relief). Let's look at the movie as a work on its own. Why does the humor in this movie fall flat and the action plod? Hammers and pride.
The Guide doesn't make jokes. It

tells you what to laugh at

laugh here

. It tells a joke which might have been a perfectly forgettable chuckle line in another movie, then tells it again, then reminds you that it told that joke, and then has another character tell the same damn joke again in the same way, just to make sure you understood that it a)was a joke and b)was something which the movie makers believed to be very very funny and witty.
I'll take the horrible arm joke, which will give you no plot spoilers, don't worry, as an example.
At one point, Arthur decides he needs a weapon and so says to Marvin, "Give me a hand." Cut to Arthur carrying an arm as a gun. Cut to Marvin walking alone with only one arm, saying "Give me a hand, well, I only have one arm, now I've only got one arm, cant even fly the ship with one arm, we'll see, give me hand, only one arm." Marvin makes jokes like this every time he shows up until the arm is mysteriously reattached and the incident forgotten. Before this, of course, we cut again to Arthur waving the arm right in the camera. See? 'Cause he's got this arm, and it's Marvin's, and he said "Give me a hand" and there was this hand he was waving in the camera, and it's 'cause he said "Give me a hand," get it, hand?
Compare this with the equally stupid "Nomanisan Island" from The Incredibles. That's a pretty dumb joke, honestly. I like the delivery, though, 'cause it's disguised in the movie. There's only one island in the movie and if you've seen it you know. If not, that's OK. This joke is delivered once over a radio and the word is pronounced "Numanasan." Most people don't pick up on the joke the first time they see the movie.
The Guide movie uses hammers. It drives every joke home as if it were speaking to an audience of Weimaraners (the slow but friendly dogs. I have no issue with Germans as a group). The Incredibles tells jokes as incidental to the story, the Guide tells jokes because it seems to feel some need to MAKE BIG FUNNY DID YOU NOTICE?
But the books aren't about the plot. OK, this is true (see why I bring them up?). The books are about carefully, lovingly, obsessively crafted dialog and humor which show an understanding that a joke need only be told once (OK, more or less) to be funny. The movie, though, is full of things which are clearly lines from the books and which were clearly jokes at some point, but which have had all the funny cut out of them. Let me give an example. Is this a joke:
A. What kind of sandwich do you want today?
B. Salami, but not if you got pickles!
A. All I have is Ham.
B. Ham's good.
No. It isn't. It's perhaps phrased like a joke. It is certainly a collection of statements. It is not, however, actually a joke. This is the impression the movie gives. For example:
A. The plans have been on display for a year.
B. I had to go in a basement!
A. But you did see them, and you are aware that we were planning...
This is played as a joke, as is Ford's giving the construction crew beer. Haha. Beer. That's great. He gave them beer. Haha. Oh, wait. That isn't funny. It's random. He happened to have a shopping cart full of beer and he gave it away.
As for the action: it isn't fair to compare the two, is it? One is a superhero movie about people alternately learning the nature of superiority and playing superspy, and the other is a nihilistic suggestion that sometimes the hero isn't the guy who saved everything, he's more likely the guy who the book is about.
And yet the movie tries to play off the story as containing action. The "rescuing Trillian" sequence is played for action and comedy. It falls flat on both. The jokes are still overwraught and the action consists of us waiting for the blank faces to stop popping back and forth on and off the screen and the horrible joke to just please, please stop. Yes, you have an arm. Yes, you are doing fucking paperwork. Hardy har har. The paperwork goes quickly (what? yes.) and the action plods.
Alright. I'll quit.
I'm just going to say again, The Incredibles is subtle and plays jokes as being, Oh, I don't know, a nice thing to add to a story. The Guide uses hammers to remind you that it contains jokes instead of plot or characterization.
Love conquers all. Sheesh. Grumble.