I have to admit: I wasn’t overly excited about seeing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when Rudi started gushing about it months ago.

I’d picked up a Douglas Adams book back in high school, but hadn’t gotten far into it when I got bored and put it down. And when Rudi tried to play me the radio series, I dozed off (although, in my defense, it was just after I’d handed over the driving on a trip up to Connecticut, so I’m not sure I could have stayed awake even if I’d been smitten).

But I love Rudi. And he loves this book series. And I wouldn’t say that about many pieces of the modern literary canon, so I agreed to see the film. Plus, the previews looked cute.

And I have to say I was impressed. My exposure to the cast had been limited to Zooey Deschanel, Alan Rickman, and Helen Mirren, but I found Mos Def to be a likable Ford Prefect, Sam Rockwell to be a hysterical President Zaphod Beeblebrox (having not read the books, I am at a loss as to whether the character actually shares similarities with real-life president George W. Bush or whether Sam and director Garth Jennings tweaked the delivery to resemble him), and Martin Freeman to be a perfect Everyman. (Oops, I lied. I have seen Freeman in Love Actually…)

And Alan Rickman (better known to me, at least, as Snape in the Harry Potter film adaptations) stole the show as the depressed robot, Marvin.

In fact, I enjoyed the movie enough that I will go back to the Adams book (which was based on the radio play, not the other way around, as I’d originally understood) and give it another shake. At the very least, it should give me some interesting Metro conversations while I’m reading it.