by Karyn Beach

Remember the Eddie Murphy of the 80’s? You know the one who did movies like Coming to America, Trading Places, 48 Hours and Delirious? Even the Eddie Murphy of the 90’s gave us Boomerang and The Nutty Professor. As I watched Meet Dave, the follow-up to last year’s abysmal Norbit, I asked myself, “What the hell happened?”

Dave (Eddie Murphy) is actually a space ship in a human form, manned by a group of tiny human aliens (Gabrielle Union, Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Pat Kilbane) led by the Captain (Eddie Murphy). They have been sent to Earth to retrieve the salt out of our water in order to save their planet. They sent a device that could do the job but the small device missed its mark and ended up in the apartment of a young boy and his single mother (Austyn Myers and Elizabeth Banks). The aliens must find the boy and retrieve the device. Along the way, a NYPD cop (Scott Caan) who has an X-Files fascination wants to find the aliens as well.

This was possibly the longest 90 minutes of my life. I didn’t laugh once. In fact, I was close to being bored to tears. It was predictable from beginning to end. The script was excruciating. The plot was flimsy and forgettable. How did this ever get made?

There is no acting to speak of. I really don’t know what else to say. Don’t Meet Dave. Yeah. That’s it. Don’t Meet Dave. It really is that simple.