The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams’ classic cult novel finally gets the big budget film adaptation that fans have been waiting for since the book was published back in 1979. Moviemaking technology circa 2005 allows Adams’ sprawling, fantastical and downright lunatic science-fiction vision to be fully realized, though some would argue that it’s the little quips, jokes and bizarro philosophical changes that really make “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” what it is over any large-scale (and expensive) special effects. Whether it’s more a droll British comedy than a gargantuan sci-fi extravaganza is strictly a matter of taste (and mood), though, no matter how you look at it, there’s no arguing that “Hitchhiker” is quite the one-of-a-kind yarn, following the adventures of Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), a regular bloke who hitches a ride on a Vogon spacecraft with his pal Ford Prefect (Mos Def) right before the alien race demolishes the Earth to make way for a galactic bypass (or “space road,” as it were); from there, they hook up with Ford’s “semi-half brother,” Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), the President of the Galaxy who’s stolen the spaceship Heart of Gold and, along with crew members Tricia ‘Trillian’ McMillan (Zooey Deschanel) and Marvin the Paranoid Android (voiced by Alan Rickman), is en route to the planet Magrathea to find the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The book was first optioned in 1982 by Ivan Reitman with the idea of having either Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd play Ford Prefect; the project was eventually replaced by a little movie called “Ghostbusters,” damning the adaptation to development hell for over 20 years. – IFC Staff