 An Eddie Murphy film sees aliens crash-land on Earth looking for a magic water-sucking orb. Instead they find gay fashion, Broadway dance numbers, and family morals.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Actually, only two Eddie Murphys populate this film. That’s seven noses and four butt cheeks less than in The Nutty Professor (1996), in which he played eight roles; and two pay checks less than Coming to America (1988), in which he was both an African prince and the same prince in disguise, also a hair gel magnate’s son, a barber, and an old Jewish man. Vampire in New York, Norbit, Bowfinger all have multiple Eddies. But we don’t mind; nor do we mind him starring in one family movie after another. Meet Dave, this latest multiple-role family movie, sees Eddie, 47, play an Eddie-Murphy shaped spaceship/robot Dave from the planet Nil; yet also the diminutive captain of that spaceship, dully entitled Number One.
The Nillians are a boring bunch of little shits. They don’t kiss, dance, smile, dress up, or permit gays. They obviously need to loosen up, not least because they've landed on Liberty Island looking for ‘the orb,’ a magic ball designed to suck up the earth’s water and leave us for dead. Good thing Eddie does family films now, so the orb splashed down in a goldfish bowl belonging to little New Yorker Josh. Josh knows it's from outer space, but pretty single mother Elizabeth Banks says he ‘must have a vivid imagination.’ She obviously needs a good family man to come along, date her, and form a Family Unit. Meanwhile, Josh loves taking his orb to science fairs. When Eddie-ship-Dave sets out to look for it, Josh’s mum runs into him with her car and 'hilarious' mayhem ensues.
Meet Dave, like many kids' outings, pokes fun at then reaffirms modern US values. Dave, a safe but determined alien spaceship, wanders New York like Borat buying naff ski jumpers, pulling faces, and knocking shoppers into knitwear. To be fair, a few of these jokes are genuinely funny. He smiles toothily at cashiers and doesn’t understand metaphor. When Josh tells Dave mum has been ‘smothering him,' he replies ‘monstrous! These beings deserve to be annihilated!’ Once exposed to the good-hearted folk of NY, the Nillians soon become good American clones. A homeless man offers Dave a blanket. A crew member realises he’s gay. Dave drinks two mojitos in a salsa bar, and says “get a load of this! It’s like space travel in your head!’
Apart from its people-sized, alien-controlled robot spaceship, Meet Dave offers nothing new. For Eddie, it reprises any number of previous roles, roles on roles, or roles on roles in roles. His cringy hijinks will entertain a younger audience, but are perhaps better as a DVD rental to tide a family over on a Saturday afternoon. Youngsters get to see robot Eddie walking about. Older kids get slightly reconsituted Americana. Adults: well, in one scene Eddie-ship blasts open a police-station door with his finger. He craps money in a loo. In a date with Josh’s mum, the Nillian Number Two complains that they’re ‘wasting their time on a colossal strumpet.’
If that isn’t post-modern existentialist commentary on the state of the world, I don’t know what is.
Three out of Five for doing everything necessary to qualify as a sort-of-okay family outing.
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