The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Don't Panic! This long-awaited adaptation of Douglas Adams's classic BBC radio series/book/TV series finally makes it to the big screen without sacrificing any of its late creator's jovially lugubrious vision. Martin Freeman stars as put-upon everyman Arthur Dent who, in the company of extraterrestrial friend Ford Prefect (rapper Mos Def), escapes the Earth moments before it's demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Armed with Ford's copy of the eponymous guide - a PDA travelogue voiced by Stephen Fry - Arthur tries to make sense of a universe in which aliens recite brain-mangling verse, sperm whales fall from the sky while pondering the nature of existence and a paranoid android (voiced by Alan Rickman) copes with depression. Although signs of Hollywood studio tampering are in evidence - the clumsy love story between Arthur and space girl Trillian (Zooey Deschanel) - director Garth Jennings stays true to the oddity at the heart of this quintessentially British space odyssey.