Review of Meet Dave (2008) by Daniel C — 11 Jul 2009

Before watching Meet Dave, I went back to the Rifftrax Blog from one year ago and read screenwriter Bill Corbett's warnings, which mainly are these: 1) this is a kids movie; 2) the original script was torn apart by dozens of other people trying to "fix" the movie, and even after the final script was submitted, it went through another week of rewrites, not to mention on-set rewrites and improvisation.

In short, don't blame Bill if the movie sucks.

Can we blame him if it's merely alright?

My wife is a big fan of Eddie Murphy, and I am a big fan of Nicolas Cage. So when watching Meet Dave last night, I tried to ask myself, "Would I enjoy this if it starred Nic Cage instead of Eddie Murphy?" And although the humor is definitely sophomoric, I answered myself with a resounding yes.

Murphy plays the captain of a spaceship, one which looks exactly like Eddie Murphy. Thinking about it now, I'm kind of astounded by the egotism it takes to create a gigantic spaceship in the shape of yourself. But I guess none of the other crew members were put off by it. Starship Dave has come to Earth from the far reaches of outer space, looking for the Allspark, which will save their planet from annihilation. The McGuffin in this movie is a meteorite that came into the possession of Elizabeth Banks' son, who promptly loses it to a bully. I loved the bully's line: "What is that? Whatever it is, I'm taking it from you!" That may not be a direct quote, but it's pretty close. So now Dave has to both search out the McGuffin and get it back from the bully, and act convincingly enough like a real human so that nobody suspects anything. On top of that, space captain Murphy is falling in love with Elizabeth Banks, much to the chagrin of his third in command. Oh, and police officers Scott Caan and Mike O'Malley (!) are hot on Dave's trail. Yikes!

Eddie Murphy acting like a robot is pretty enjoyable... he does a good job of it. Some of the jokes that come from his misunderstandings about human interactions are a little bit silly, and I can see where the A.V. Club's Keith Phipps is coming from when he asks, "Why... would humanoid aliens whose culture has so much in common with Earth's spend so much time baffled by what they encounter?" But I'm kind of sated by Bill Corbett's first warning up there: this is a kids movie. You could spend an equal amount of time worrying why the carnivorous animals in all these talking animal movies don't face more of an ethical dilemma when they befriend herbivores, but at some point you've just got to accept the premise and enjoy the movie as best you can.

Similarly, yes, all of the crew on Starship Dave are obviously human, albeit very tiny. But, you know, it's not really that big of a deal.

Because it is a kids movie, the humor does not often reach levels that really reward the adult viewer. Other than just watching Murphy acting weird, there's nothing especially clever behind it. There are a few vague scatological references, although nothing too offensive. And I was definitely encouraged by the lack of dick jokes, especially in comparison to Ice Age 3 - there was one passing reference to Starship Dave's "accoutrements", but it's not the main focus of the scene.

I'm getting off topic, though. What I really wanted to say was: although the humor didn't really do enough for me as an adult, the real problem with the movie was in its pacing. The ease with which Dave finds the McGuffin's whereabouts, how quickly Banks and her son come to like Dave and accept his quirks, the way that space captain Murphy's emotions move at the slightest provocation... it just all seems to be happening too fast. There's really no reason that the movie should have taken its time, I know, but the whole thing still felt much too rushed.

Regardless, Meet Dave was, in the end, mostly harmless. An occasionally chuckle-worthy movie that doesn't stretch too hard and doesn't reach into any extremely offensive territory (a couple of stereotyped characters were a little bit aggravating). Even if the story was torn to shreds by multiple re-writes, I think the heart of it remains. It's silly, and not much more. That's okay. It's not mind-blowing, but it's okay.

Just fine.