The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) begins with the Earth being demolished to make way for a bypass. Arthur Dent wakes to learn his house is to be bulldozed. The same day the Vogons arrive and demolish the Earth for the same reason: a hyperspace route is being built and the objection period has long expired. Arthur is rescued at the last moment by his friend Ford, who turns out to be an alien. What follows is hitchhiking across the galaxy: a two headed president, a permanently depressed robot, and a ship that moves improbably. The humour comes from bureaucracy. Even the destruction of a planet is described as a paperwork failure. Douglas Adams wrote a radio play first, then the books, and worked on the screenplay for years. He died in 2001 before it was made. Some things in the film are material he wrote for the cinema alone; the character Humma Kavula and the point of view gun are not in the books. The visual approach is deliberately handmade: the Vogons are not digital but were built as puppets at the Jim Henson workshop. The Guide itself is presented in animation and those passages are the best of it. Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel and Bill Nighy star. Alan Rickman voices the depressed robot. Some readers of the books found the adaptation too gentle. It runs 109 minutes. Good for: comic science fiction, British humour, and readers of the books. Less good for: the plot is scattered and the humour is a very particular taste.