MEET DAVE REVIEW

“Meet Dave” is the worst movie ever.

I never wanted to “Meet Dave”. I knew Dave would be horrible. Graham Elwood (assigner of movies for review) will do time in hell for this. I was more than willing to write the review without seeing the film. In the end, if I don’t reference this movie in a suicide note; it’s because I was so sure that Eddie Murphy was going to be nine characters and wear a black-lady-fat-suit.

He didn’t and so hope springs eternal, because I want to like Eddie Murphy. I remember liking him. The last movie I liked him in was “Bowfinger”; though, again, he plays more than one character. It’s as if that one scene he did with Arsenio Hall in “Coming To America” has affected every acting decision he’s made since.

Oh, there were desperate times while sitting through this movie. Times when I needed to laugh or like something. I found a glimpse of what is great about Eddie Murphy in an impression of the Bee Gees he did that lasted less than 10 seconds. And I had to look for it. The funniest line in the movie was from a minor character played by Kevin Hart – he’s in a coffee cup – the line was basic – but he nailed the delivery. It’s not worth seeing the movie to hear this line.

Eddie Murphy is the tiny captain of a ship that is on a mission to steal all the salt from Earth’s oceans to power their home planet. The ship he captains is a human sized version of himself. Let the hilarity of the crew learning how to work the arms and legs of Eddie-Murphy-The-Ship ensue.

He is distracted from his mission by a mother/son duo that is so sappy they belong in a Lifetime movie. His character and most of the crew come to believe that things are more fun on Earth. Their planet, which might be Mars, doesn’t have MySpace (yes… on the lips of Judah Friedlander no less) and so Earth is more important than their planet. So they sell out their planet to support Earth and fly back home at the end of the movie to regroup and go look for another planet to steal from. Oh – should I have said spoiler? Uh… this is the worst movie ever.

There’s no fixing this movie but I sat there thinking… their ship is totally re-powered by a Taser shot to Eddie-Murphy-The-Ship? Maybe their whole culture just needed a salt shaker’s worth of salt? We could just give them that. And then we might be worthy of the sledge hammered message that humanity is beautifully diverse, loving, and worth saving.

It’s certainly a better ending than one where we send the FBI as humanity’s representative to shoot Eddie-Murphy-The-Ship. This, by the way, only forces the co-dependent aliens to use their ingenuity to escape tiny waterboarding and certain death. Though I’m sure they would have forgiven us because we created Fantasy Island.

I’m sure everyone involved wanted this to be “The Day the Earth Stood Still” with a lot of bodily function humor, but it was not to be. This was written by professionals by the way. Guys that have written on “Frasier”, “How I Met Your Mother” and “Mystery Science Theater 3000”. The writers are obviously talented – but something stepped in and royally screwed the words spoken into the camera. The cast certainly did what they could with the hacky jokes and premises. But it was horrible.

If you have never seen a movie – go to see this movie. If this were the first movie you’d ever seen, you would enjoy it. You would be fascinated by the technology of moving pictures. If you had also never read a book you might even be surprised by the plot, message, or the next horribly telegraphed piece of dialog or action in the movie. You might even enjoy Eddie-Murphy-The-Ship pooping counterfeit money. The rest of us should just rent “It’s a Wonderful Life” – the movie they referenced to show humanity at its best. A movie that has been referenced so much it rivals the number of poop jokes in “Meet Dave”.

Right after I saw “Meet Dave” I went and saw “Wall-E” for a second time so that I could be reminded that both message and hilarity are possible. “Wall-E” was the best way to get the taste of preachy out of my mouth. “Wall-E”. But Graham – could you please send me to watch “Mama Mia”?

Editor’s note: We all have to make sacrifices. Remember, Graham went to see “The Happening” and Chris went to see “Street Kings.” But as cruel as we are, even we didn’t make anyone go see “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”

Jackie Kashian