I've never read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," heard the original radio plays that were turned into the book or seen the British TV series. That puts me at a serious disadvantage in evaluating how the fanboys, who are likely to be most critical of the new "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie will react.

But it has never really mattered much to me how closely a movie sticks to the book on which it is based. They are separate entities, and one shouldn't be required to have read the book to enjoy the movie, if the picture is any good.

That said, I found "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" to be goofily entertaining — an irreverent sci-fi satire that manages to keep its humor going throughout.

For those unfamiliar with the book, here's the basic setup:

Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is an ordinary Englishman with an extraordinary problem: His house is about to be bulldozed for a new freeway. But that's not really as bad as it seems. For his best friend, Ford Perfect (Mos Def), turns out to be an alien who knows Earth is about to be blown up to make way for an intergalactic freeway.

Ford gets Arthur off the planet just in time. But they wind up on a construction ship of the Vogons — rubbery, poetry-spouting bureaucrats who run the galaxy and are more than willing to dispatch the duo into the cosmos.

Just when things look grim, the two are rescued again — this time by the Heart of Gold, a rather magical ship that has been commandeered by the wacko, dimwitted Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), who just happens to be president of the galaxy. Also on board is Trillian, aka Tricia McMillian (Zooey Deschanel), a woman Zaphod picked up on Earth who just happened to have been making eyes at Arthur before things blew up.

Completing the crew is Marvin (voice of Alan Rickman), a very depressed robot with a very big head.

Their adventures are plenty silly and plenty funny and are assisted by the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a book that provides some degree of explanation about what is being encountered or needed to survive.

None of this, of course, is to be taken all that seriously. And no one involved in the film appears to have done so.

Freeman, a star of the BBC version of "The Office," is perfectly baffled as Dent, rapper Mos Def a surprise as the crafty alien Ford, and Rockwell goes right over the top as Zaphod, creating a performance as memorable as that he delivered playing Chuck Barris in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." Meanwhile, Deschanel manages to be funny, brainy and sexy, and Rickman was a perfect choice for Marvin's voice.

The sets and space creatures are imaginatively enough done, although they're really nothing all that new. The original "Star Wars" set the bar for such things almost 30 years ago, and even with all the computers doing all their processing, it hasn't really been topped.

But the key is that director Garth Jennings, making his first feature film, captures just the right tone, making fun of sci-fi while still telling a story. It helps that he was working from a script penned by the late Douglas Adams, the book's author, that was brushed up by Karey Kirkpatrick.

I have no clue how "Hitchhiker's Guide" aficionados are going to react to the picture. Perhaps they'll really like it, but I doubt it since movies almost never live up to what can be generated by the imagination.

But for the uninitiated, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a fun twist on the usually far-too-serious sci-fi genre.

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

***

Director: Garth Jennings

Stars: Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Sam Rockwell

Rated: PG

Now Showing: Grand, East Park SouthPointe

The Reel Story: The popular sci-fi satiric novel comes to the big screen and is full of witty, silly fun and some entertaining performances.