Meet Dave

When is Eddie Murphy hoing to have a third renaissance? Its a question that played on my mind when watching Meet Dave (Meet Dave is pretty shit by the way). I mean it all started well back in 82 with 48hrs (which is a great film to go back to I found out having seen it recently after a probable twelve year gap) and Trading Places, Beverley Hills Cop, then he did some family friendly pump, a then in 95 he does Vampire in Brooklyn and Metro a few years after and he is edgy again, but apart from really Life (Rays Boom Boom Room would be the shit!) which was great and Bowfinger which was clever the rest since then has been, well to repeat myself family friendly pump, Dr Dolittle, Norbit, Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care for Christs sake! So when will he return to the stuff we all know he is capable of?

Meet Dave is one of those family friendly pump films (thats three times i have used that phrase, lazy reviewing or simply the fact i have hit on a terrific saying, i will let you decide) and its not that its particularly bad more the fact what is Eddie Murphy doing in this? Its a film about a spaceship that crash lands on earth manned by a crew looking for a instrument which will save their planet. It just so happens that the spaceship looks like Eddie Murphy and the Captain looks like Eddie Murphy and thats because thats the gag, watch Eddie Murphy inside Eddie Murphy, great! It isnt great though, cue good looking single mom seeing the good in the spaceship even though it acts weird (it takes all its knowledge off (usually misjudged) internet sites) and her moppet son is mollycoddled at home and bullied at school strking up a bond with ths weird alien thing. Without ruining anything for anone with a brain, the ships crew find out that earth is great, they all relax, oh and a baddy tries to wreck it, oops, oh its nearly 80minutes in, lets tie this up with a happy ending and scene! film over. Actually that is a bad film.

Personally there is a few funny moments, but most are skin crawling as Murphy walks funny and says the wrong thing and basically pratfalls as the spaceship and is all stuck up and playing it straight as the ships captain, wrong wrong wrong wrong! The rest of his crew are pretty stereotypical, a gay man in the closet, a great looking burd that fancies the Captain (Murphy) a Baddie, a superfly young black guy, you know how it goes.



Coming up for Murphy is a film by the director of Norbit, an untitled Eddie Murphy/Romeo and Juliet project, a remake of the incredible Shrinking Man, and Shrek 4. Can't really see the return from that slate. So watch Meet Dave if you get the chance, realise that it wouldnt get pummeled so much if it wasnt Murphy in it (ok it would) and watch Life cos its great. Ah the secret of a good review, end up recommending something else!

Ruud Kerouac