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Murphy makes a run for it to escape a rogue basketball in Meet Dave |
Meet Dave. Mini Eddie Murphy is no small wonder
MEET DAVE
Directed by Brian Robbins
Certificate PG
THERE was once a lovely little cartoon strip in The Beezer comic called The Numbskulls, which told of the adventures of a series of little people who lived inside a man and were responsible for operating him.
It was simple fare and I recall it pleasing my nine-year-old mind.
The same premise is behind Meet Dave.
Dave, played by Eddie Murphy, is not a human at all: instead, he is an alien spaceship that has come to earth to find a piece of planet-saving gadgetry twanged off course when it hit a satellite.
We discover this orb is a wondrous piece of technology, and can suck up water and then somehow turn the salt inside into power. The aliens, having exhausted their own planet, now hope to squish the oceans into the tiny sphere, send it home and rejoice.
The orb is collected by a little New York boy called Josh who we learn has lost his father – he was in the American Navy and killed in action, meaning when Dave arrives to retrieve the orb, Josh likes having a man about the place, as does his mother. Cue the start of a relationship which is only going to get in the way of the mission.
Sadly, this is as lazy a film as you can imagine. Murphy has sunk to new depths (and he was pretty low already). He has made some humdingingly bad films in the recent past, but Meet Dave is his worst yet.
So will they find the orb and get home? Or will they fall in love with Earth and decide to save it? Who knows, and after half and hour, you won’t care. The jokes are crude – you are supposed to laugh at the idea of him printing his banknotes...wait for it... out of his own backside! Oh the joy it must have been to write such a scene.
The acting would shame an am-dram production, a problem that worsens when the writers try to give the little aliens emotional issues to deal with.
As they become “infected” by Earth, they start to love each other and chill out. Murphy’s second-in-command mutinies. His security officer turns gay. His research officer falls in love with him. Cringeworthy nonsense. Avoid at all costs. |
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