AICN has a report from a test screening of the upcoming Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy based on the popular sci-fi novel by Douglas Adams.

But despite declaring the film ‘mostly terrific’ AICN has mostly troubling words for the movie’s creature effects by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop:

How cheap (does the film look)? Cheap enough that the filmmakers use every trick in the book to NOT show Zaphod’s two heads and third arm. They even go so far as to create an elaborate plot device which removes said head and arm for the entire second half of the film in what has to be the most latent attempt to save a buck I’ve ever seen on the big screen.

The Vogans are something out of The Dark Crystal but once the camera backs away from the expressive and wholly creative faces of these nasty beings, we see a group of lumbering puppets with little range of motion.

Marvin on the other hard is splendid with his depressed bobble-head stature and sad, glowing eyes. The droll voicing by Alan Rickman is spot-on and is one of the highlights of the film.

Other creatures don’t fare as well though and we see slipshod aliens in the periphery throughout as well as a scene in a bar with a cast of extras who make the aliens in the Star Wars Cantina look cutting edge. Some might argue that these design elements look bad on purpose, that the film isn’t taking itself too seriously. The problem though is that blending these bargain-basement physical effects with expensive scenery here-and-there make the context of the world of the film hard to digest.

It’s worth noting that this is an early report from a test screening and may not reflect the quality of the finished film. If this is accurate I suspect that the usually stellar Creature Shop may have been hampered on Hitchhiker by a low budget and the relative inexperience of director Garth Jennings, who picked an incredibly complicated book to adapt for his feature debut. You can read the full AICN report here.

For more Hitchhiker news visit Planet Magrathea, where UK author MJ Simpson keeps daily tabs on all developments in the Douglas Adams universe.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opens in theatres May 6th.