REVIEW: Meet Dave (PG)

To what must now be a generation of youngsters, Eddie Murphy is presumably a family movie god. The Haunted Mansion, Dr.Doolittle 1&2 and Daddy Day Camp have all done considerably well, despite being utter tripe. He has maintained some credibility through the now cult character of Donkey in the Shrek movies, and an Oscar-nominated turn in Dreamgirls, but nonetheless Murphy has inexplicably forged ahead with these ‘hilarious’ capers.

This particular jape sees Murphy star as a spaceship. A human-shaped spaceship to be precise, piloted by the intrepid-but-tiny people of Nill, with a plan to suck dry the Earth’s oceans. Their plan was to pose as one of them, however as the crew (including captain Eddie Murphy and loyal officer Gabrielle Union) get to know a single mother (Elizabeth Banks) and her son, they realise the planet is a place worth saving.

The plot is alarmingly similar to December’s marvellous Enchanted, only minus the charm and stellar cast. A basic fish-out-of-water tale with a blank-faced innocent feeling his way through the urban jungle of New York, it’s been done a few times before, only better. The single mother with kid plot angle has also been strangled to death (see Sleepless in Seattle, The Holiday, Enchanted) and the father having passed away ‘in action’ for the army only just seems to be on the right side of emotional blackmail. You can see where the plot’s going from a million miles away, and for anyone over 12 it may be a wasted trip. There are moments that raise a giggle, but overall a rather long and predictable ride.

The cast you may be familiar with from TV or in bit-parts from other movies. Banks does her part as the calamity-prone single ma, and by this point has spent 90% of her career playing the pretty-yet-vacant love interest. However, playing that role to a human-shaped spaceship with little aliens inside must have been a change even for her. Scott Caan is inexplicably cast as an alien-chasing New York cop, in a largely pointless role which should’ve been expanded. Gabrielle Union is the surprise package, injecting some surprising subtlety as ‘Alien Murphy’s’ right hand woman, and unrequited love.

Murphy himself tries to be the very poor man’s Peter Sellers yet again, playing both the spaceship and the alien captain with a similar lack of enthusiasm. The tragedy for anyone who’s ever seen 48 Hours, Trading Places or the first two Beverly Hills Cop outings is that this is the type of movie Murphy is now associated with - neutered, tame family fare. Given the force Murphy was in the ‘80s, it’s the equivalent of seeing Tarantino direct Sesame Street.

Meet Dave isn’t the disaster that Norbit was, and may keep the younglings entertained for 90 or so minutes. It is, however, an unspectacular movie that trundles along to its inevitable end with sporadic comedy along the way. Not inoffensively bad, but never tries to be anything other than bland family comedy.