Meet Dave - Film Review

Someday, Eddie Murphy will go back to the funny swearing that made his name. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with him pulling silly faces for the kids in time-passers like this. Indulging two passions - multiple roles and Star Trek - Murphy plays both the tiny Kirk-ian captain of an alien spaceship and the Eddie-shaped vessel itself, which wanders white-suited through Manhattan in search of a glowy, home-planet-saving orb-whatsit. Variable FX, logic-lapses and missed emotional beats leave a lot of shortfall for the laughs to make up; alas, there aren't enough of the 'belly' kind to go round. Still, Norbit director Brian Robbins does muster an innocuous, family-time vibe... then sullies it when a butch security guard discovers his inner Cher-loving stereotype. Isn't sci-fi meant to be all about looking forward?