Featured Review: MEET DAVE

Meet Dave



Starring Eddie Murphy (x2), Elizabeth Banks, Gabrielle Union, Ed Helms, Scott Caan, Mike O'Malley, Pat Kilbane, Kevin Hart, Judah Friedlander.



Directed by Brian Robbins



Grade: D



"I am Dave... Dave... Ming... Chang."

Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than Eddie Murphy's character of the alien spaceship vessel Dave, is Eddie Murphy's career. This is a man who captured a generation of post-Richard Pryor fans with his vulgar and obscenely hilarious stand-up comedy. This is a man who has been in respectable comedies such as the Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs franchises, Coming To America, and dare I say The Nutty Professor and Bowfinger. This is a man who has plied his trade in family films (Shrek, Mulan, Dr. Dolittle, The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care), and just TWO YEARS AGO almost won an Oscar for Dreamgirls.

This is a man who causes himself self-harm, and wants to destroy his career.

What in the name of Hollywood's holiest possesses Murphy to be involved in these kinds of films? Is it the money? The star power? The complete lack of a smart agent to dissuade him from making a complete joke out of himself? Let's get this out right now; Meet Dave is legitimately funny. Funnier than perhaps Adam Sandler's Zohan and Mike Myers' Love Guru combined. But the movie itself is so terrible, from the plot to the acting to the ridiculousness of the whole asinine thing, you have to wonder if Meet Dave is less a comedy but an actual autobiography of the inner workings of Murphy's own brain.

Murphy stars as Dave, the fictional name of the human-like spaceship that crash lands near the Statue of Liberty. He is made in the likeness of the ship's captain, also played by Murphy. The crew of several hundred all work throughout the ship's body to control Dave's functions, which doesn't work as smoothly as planned. He is flanked by his number two man Number Two (The Office's Ed Helms) and pretty soldier Number Three (Gabrielle Union). They are on Earth to deplete its' water source for their own dying planet, but are side-tracked after being hit by Gina Morrison (Elizabeth Banks) and bonding with her son Josh. The encounters the ship faces with Earth people begin to have a major effect on all the alien inhabitants in vastly different ways.

The plot is point blank, terrible. It plays out way less confusing than it sounds, and then has a sub plot involving two cops (Scott Caan and Mike O'Malley) who investigate the crash. I'm fortunate never to have seen The Adventures of Pluto Nash, but I can't imagine it being much more ridiculous than Dave.

Things play out as they lie, mining humor from sources with little effort. The nerdy-looking alien in charge of the ship's engineering (30 Rock's Judah Friedlander) becomes a Myspace addict, the security officer (Pat Kilbane, original MADtv member) sees 12 seconds of Broadway's A Chorus Line and becomes flamboyantly gay, the repairman (Kevin Hart) gets drunk and listens to hip-hop and becomes a loud-mouthed stereotype. And so on and so on.

Murphy himself, while awful, is at least kind of humorous. His attacks on the audiences' funny bone comprises mostly of goofy faces, odd voices, literal interpretations, sight gags, and random dialogue. It can tend to be kind of self-centered in the vein of "let's see how much screen time I can fit my face onto", but he fares better than Myers this summer, and is slightly more restraint than his other multi-character movies such as the recent Norbit. Still doesn't excuse the fact that as Dave he is really, really-- and I mean really-- disturbing. I don't think I've seen an actor blankly smile so much since at least Murphy's Holy Man.

The addition of Helms could be considered a minor bright spot. As the second in command who eventually becomes overstimulated with power, he brings some of his humorous persona from The Office with him. A couple of his quips are some of the funniest in the movie.

The romantic interest between Dave and Banks' character Gina is extremely awkward. She tries earnestly to forge some kind of intimate connection with him, despite the fact he's quite obviously not right in the head, let alone actually a complex alien spaceship. How desperate is she if she's still hanging out with him after witnessing his obvious lack of emotional connection and strange demeanor? This character/plot advancement is the perfect reason why you can't expect anything good out of a movie like Meet Dave.

I couldn't quite tell if I was laughing out loud because it was genuinely funny or if it was so ridiculous that it's a gut reaction. But in a year of mostly joyless star vehicles so far, at least Murphy found a way to eke a little entertainment out of his expectations. But if he is to ever regain any amount of respect he had from the 1980s, Murphy needs to go back to his roots and ditch the Eddie Murphy brand name.

After this newest box office disaster (estimates from Friday placed the film in 7th with a paltry $1.7 million take), Murphy needs to put away Meet Dave and take out an old photograph to meet Eddie Murphy circa 1982. Where has he gone?