This film adaptation of Douglas Adams’ book/radio-programme/television show/demi-religious cult took so damned long getting here, that the author – who happily had a hand in the screenplay – never lived to see its completion. But could Adams’ convoluted sci-fi yarn, with its blend of public-schoolboy joshing, humdrum Englishness and Pythonesque surrealism survive him? Apparently so.
For those unfamiliar with the plot (I’m not entirely sure I can help you but I‘ll take a stab at it) Hitchhiker’s concerns the intergalactic misfortunes of one Arthur Dent (Freeman from The Office). Sitting miserably at home, pining for a girl he’s met at a party (Bright Young Thing Deschanel) and waiting for the bulldozers to demolish his abode, he’s suddenly interrupted by his best friend (Def), a covert alien who rescues him from a doomed earth with seconds to spare. Reduced to traversing often perilous regions of the universe, the pair catch up with Arthur’s lost party girl, the ludicrous leader of the galaxy (Sam Rockwell in a series of outfits which may have been designed with The Sweet in mind) and an Eeyore-ish robot. Together they discover the secret genius of mice and that the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42.
Video wunderkind Garth Jennings of Hammer and Tongs fame invests the material with appropriately eccentric flair (check out the fabulous all-woollen scene or the Bill Nighy tour through the planet factory) and a felicitous approach to the frequently unwieldy source. While his Hitchhiker’s has lost some of the charming Anglocentricity of the original sacred text, Freeman’s Arthur makes for an appealing English everyman from the same mould as Simon Pegg’s Shaun Of The Dead; the perfect travelling companion through this delightfully demented hopscotch.

Running Time 100mins. Cert 12a. Opens April 29th.