A middling, meandering Eddie Murphy comedy, at least Brian Robbins’ Meet Dave is reasonably inoffensive and family-friendly; a nice change of pace from the star’s recent flicks of the Norbit/Nutty Professor variety.
But while Murphy is (as usual, it seems) given multiple roles to play, neither showcase his comedic talent – as a human-sized alien spacecraft and it’s stoic, Captain Kirk-like commander, the actor is unusually restrained. Dave’s exploration of humanity is fitfully amusing for awhile, but there’s absolutely nothing new here.
On a mission to destroy Earth (I think – any semblance of plot is largely ignored here), a crew of miniature humanoid aliens track a rogue meteorite to New York City, landing next to the Statue of Liberty in their convenient Eddie Murphy-shaped spacecraft.
Remember that scene in Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex where a miniature Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds pilot a man through a sexual encounter, culminating with the deployment of Woody as Sperm #1? Great as a ten minute skit, not so ideal when stretched out to 90-minutes and devoid of anything as interesting as a sexual adventure.
There are endless, tiring jokes about navigating the arms and legs and what happens to these miniatures when the vehicle eats or drinks or visits an amusement park (yes, the movie is really that strained).
The Murphy spacecraft, named Dave Ming Chen (Captain: “quick, what are the most common names on Earth?”) hooks up with single mom Gina (Elizabeth Banks) after she hits him with her car, and the film starts to veer towards some kind of improbable romance.
Conveniently, her son had the Earth-destroying meteorite that Dave has been after, which now needs to be retrieved from the school bully. As the miniature aliens interact with humans, they begin to change, becoming (yawn) more human themselves, and there’s another romance between the Captain and his 2nd in command (Gabrielle Union, who’s often the best thing about the film).
Meanwhile, a couple of cops played by Scott Caan and Mike O’Malley track down the Murphy spacecraft, which left a faceprint next to the Statue of Liberty.
Bland and cliché and a very long hour-and-a-half, this is nowhere near a good film, though I appreciate that it didn’t plumb the depths of Murphy’s other recent work. What happened to that wonderful comedian from Saturday Night Live who starred in 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop and Trading Places?
