The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – 2005 | 110 mins | Comedy, Sci-Fi | Colour

Plot Synopsis

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is based upon the popular cult novel by Douglas Adams which eventually became the first of a five-part series of novels. The books are ultimately based upon a late 1970′s BBC radio show, and were likewise the basis of a 1981 British television mini-series. Adams died in 2001 of a heart attack at the age of 49 when still at work on the screenplay so American screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick was hired to complete the final draft and cultivate a more conventional plot. Directorial duties are handled by Garth Jennings, one half of the team of music promo directors known as Hammer and Tongs. Whether or not the millions of H2G2 fans will embrace this Hollywood treatment of the story with its diluted Englishness and purging of the books subtle absurdist humour is contentious.

Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) gets up one day to discover that his home is going to be demolished to make way for a motorway bypass. Not long after, his alien friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) tells him that the Earth is about to be demolished to make way for an hyperspace expressway; and Ford has a way out. Introducing Arthur to the wonders of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, a PDA-type book (voiced by Stephen Fry) with the very useful reminder to “Don’t Panic” written on its front, Arthur and Ford are soon stowaways on a Vogon construction spaceship as Earth is being reduced to rubble – but the Vogons don’t take kindly to hitchhikers and force the duo to endure a recital of atrocious Vogon poetry. Thrown off the Vogon ship, Arthur and Ford are scooped from certain death by the crew of the stolen Heart of Gold spaceship; two-headed glam Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), Marvin the depressed android (Alan Rickman) and sprightly Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), soon they’re journeying through space with the assistance of the Infinite Improbability Drive to determine the answer to “Life, The Universe, and Everything” whilst pursued by squadrons of Vogons.