Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Banks, Gabrielle Union,
Scott Caan, Marc Blucas, Ed Helms, Austin Lynd Myers,
Judah Friedlander, Kevin Hart, Mike O'Malley
Written by Rob Greenberg & Bill Corbett
Certification UK PG | US PG
Runtime 90 minutes
Directed by Brian Robbins
Once upon a time, there was a very funny man named Eddie Murphy. He stood up on stage in American comedy clubs and told very funny, quite rude jokes, and made lots of people laugh. Then he went on television, on a show called Saturday Night Live, where he appeared in sketches and told jokes, and again he made lots of people laugh. Then he moved into movies — movies such as 48 Hours, and Trading Places, and beverly Hills Cop, and Coming To America — and yes, once again he made people laugh.
But then things started to go wrong. Somehow Eddie Murphy lost his mojo, and the funny left him. He started making films such as Harlem Nights, and Boomerang, and Vampire in Brooklyn, and The Nutty Professor, and Metro, and Life — and each time, less and less people laughed. Then in 2007 came Norbit, the absolute nadir of Eddie Murphy's career ... and nobody laughed. Sadly, the only time Eddie Murphy has been funny in the past few years has been when he has been talking out of his ass in the Shrek films.
Now we have Meet Dave. And once again, we have to report that Eddie Murphy is not funny. Ever since Coming to America, Eddie has somehow got it into his his head that he more roles he plays in a movie, the funnier he is. He played four parts in Coming to America, while in The Nutty Professor he played all five members of the chunky Klump clan (but six in the sequel). In Norbit, a film that had exactly zero laughs, he played three parts, and now in Meet Dave he has just two. Which is more than enough. Murphy playes the captain of a spaceship that is shaped like Eddie Murphy. The ship is normal human being size, which means the people inside are of Lilliputian proportions. Murphy and his fellow miniscule aliens have come to Earth to drain the planet of its oceans, because their planet has run out of water (for reasons never explained). Dave (the spaceship) crashlands on Earth at the Statue of Liberty. Face first. Dave wears a white suit because the occupants intercepted our television transmissions and thought the suit worn by Ricardo Montalban in Fantasy Island was the height of fashion. Dave walks funny and talks funny and has absolutely no concept of proper social interaction. But hey, it's New York, so he gets away with it.
While Meet Dave is not as offensively, awfully bad as Norbit (it's by THE SAME DIRECTOR for crying out loud), it's nothing more than a mild outing with a scarcity of laughs and some nice ideas that really aren't exploited — they could have had a lot of fun with the size differential between the aliens and the humans, but the Land of The Giants moments are few and far between. The set design of the inside of Dave (the spaceship) is almost a carbon copy of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The two funniest gags in the whole film involve bowel movements. The only reason this movie managed to score 2 stars is because Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union are so easy on the eye, but both these women are shamefully wasted here. The sooner Eddie Murphy gives up the movies and goes back to stand-up, and regains his mojo, the better for all of us.