Meet Dave

Jul 18 2008 By The Journal

(1hr 30mins) Starring: Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Banks, Austyn Lind Myers. Director: Brian Robbins

TWO Eddie Murphys are no better than one. In this family comedy, he plays the leader of a race of one and three quarter inch high aliens on a mercy mission to save their planet.

The funnyman also plays the extra-terrestrials’ spaceship, called Dave – designed to look like a human being so they can pass amongst us unnoticed.

Crew members take control of each part of the ship’s anatomy, resulting in disastrous first efforts to walk or put on a sweater.

Neither role plays to Murphy’s diminished strengths, and the script almost drowns in its own sentiment as the aliens realise mankind isn’t so bad after all.

They would undoubtedly revise their opinion if they had to sit through this film.

A meteorite falls to Earth and smashes into a goldfish bowl belonging to a son and mother living in New York.

Then the aliens crash-land in their Dave craft to seek the meteorite – key to saving their home – but become distracted when they meet the family. The film begins with fleetingly amusing sequences of aliens trying to mimic humans or taking characters at their word, like when the son complains, his protective mother smothers him. "She cuts off your air supply?" asks Dave, aghast.

But it becomes increasingly implausible. And Murphy is charmless in both his parts.