COMPUTER ZONE

Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy began in 1978 as a BBC radio serial, which then spawned a bestselling book, a television series, more books, and even a text-based computer game. So it was inevitable that it would be made into a film: It just took a little longer than expected. The delay, in part, arose from the sizable problem of making a film that would appeal to both the book's devoted legions and newcomers to the Adams universe. Working from the last draft of the screenplay completed by Adams, who died in 2001, director Garth Jennings (one half of the music video team Hammer & Tongs) gives us a big-screen Guide that is about as good as you could expect from squashing a sprawling, meandering book into a 1-hour, 45-minute movie. The story remains the same: Arthur Dent (The Office's Martin Freeman) escapes from Earth mere seconds before it is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. This is thanks to Arthur's best friend, Ford (Mos Def). Ford, it turns out, is actually an alien who had been on Earth researching the latest edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. From there, Arthur meets Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), his girlfriend, Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and depressed robot Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman) -- and learns of his and Earth's role in discovering the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. The casting is spot on, especially Rickman, Stephen Fry (as the voice of the Guide), and an underused Bill Nighy as planetary designer Slartibartfast. Jennings attempts to retain Adams's spirit and humor, but some of the book's funniest sections were often lengthy asides, digressions, and footnotes; many of these have been excised to add such unnecessary elements as an Arthur-Trillian romance and a subplot involving John Malkovich as a cult leader. Yet when taken on its own terms -- which may be impossible for fans -- this Guide is still light-years smarter than your average interstellar screwball comedy.