Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsMindless, harmless drivel
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2022
Eddie Murphy told a producer he wanted to star in a movie where he could stretch beyond his current acting skills. Stretch -- as in stretching his facial muscles with goofy grins, quadriceps with silly walks, and pecs with salsa dancing. This is the only explanation for this movie.
The premise of "Meet Dave" is promising -- a crew of aliens from a dying world must destroy Earth to save their planet. But they fall in love with Earth and its people and feel conflicted over which planet is worth saving. The writers took this cute concept and bludgeoned it to a merciless death with a poor script that's so incoherent and simplistic, a 5-year-old would tell you it doesn't logically hold together. Worse, the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes *not* brought to life by actors trying to figure out what space-aliien caricature they're trying to be in any particular scene.
There's one funny scene in the movie, well-played by Murphy. An alien robot Eddie Murphy holds his arm out on a busy Manhattan street, trying to hail a cab. After four or five cabs whiz by this Black off-worlder without stopping, he says, "What, an alien cannot get a cab in this town?" Is that one laugh worth 90 minutes of your time?
