The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

Herald rating: * * *

For those who missed the radio series, books, TV adaptation and the movie on the big-screen over the past 30 years, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, Tim from The Office), is having a bad Thursday. Earth is being demolished to make way for an intergalactic bypass which will run right through his house.

Happily his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), reveals that he's an alien researching Earth for a guidebook - presumably before it becomes a very lonely planet indeed.

Ford beams them up to a Vogon spaceship and from there they hitch a ride on another transporter, the Heart of Gold, commanded by the Galaxy's two-faced (literally), three-armed president, Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell).

He is accompanied by another refugee from Earth, Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and Marvin the Paranoid Android (voiced by Alan Rickman). In the course of their journeys Arthur will learn the answer to life, the universe and everything and also what the question is.

Garth Jennings swings from directing Blur and REM docos to a low-budget version that is true to the spirit of the writer, the late Douglas Adams, particularly in Stephen Fry's voice-over of Adams' dry, witty inside-out take on the haphazard absurdities of science, philosophy and a whole bunch of really important things.

Plenty of fooling about on the DVD, too, from a knock-about making-of, an hour-long doco with Adams considering his inspiration (from personal experience, he was a morose man, especially after several whiskies for lunch), and Jennings' extensive exploration of the production.

There are five deleted scenes - three real, two fake; interviews on set; a couple of additional entries to the Guide; two commentaries and a couple of games.

* DVD, video rental today