Meeting Dave makes a bad impression

Why does Eddie Murphy continuously seem to pick some of the worst scripts in Hollywood?  One would have hoped that Murphy’s Oscar nomination for “Dreamgirls” would have provided him better avenues in which to restore his career.  Now more films like “Norbit” and “Daddy Day Care” seem to be all that is in store for the actor. 

Therefore, Eddie Murphy’s downward spiral continues with “Meet Dave” and this time he manages to bring Gabrielle Union and Elizabeth Banks down with him.

In the film, Eddie Murphy plays the captain of a miniature alien race whose spaceship is in the form of a human man, later named Dave.  The captain and his crew are in search of a device that is needed to solve the alien race’s energy crisis; however, the energy can only be obtained by draining the Earth of its oceans.  The effects of this depletion would be catastrophic for the planet and this fact poses a considerable dilemma for the captain once he befriends an Earth family.  Through their kindness and that of others the crew meets, Dave is forced to decide whether his planet’s energy needs or the compassion of human race is more valuable. 

This movie fails on many levels, the most important of which is being funny.  None of the jokes require any brain cells and you may be missing some by the time you leave the theater.  The whole movie is just one brainless gag after the other, producing more eye rolls than laughs.  In other words, the audience is left feeling bored rather than amused and because of this the movie feels a lot longer than its hour and a half running time.

There is really not much more one can say about the film.  It’s hard to evaluate the acting because there wasn’t much for the actors to go on.  The dialogue was bad and the characters were unimaginative so it’s hard to blame the actors for not bringing anything special to their roles.  The person most at fault is probably the producer who agreed to make the film, hopefully audiences will be able to forget that this film was ever released and it will fade into the background like most of Eddie Murphy’s recent works.