Meet Dave (2008) – Science Fiction

By Steve Biodrowski

Will Rogers famously said he never met a man he didn’t like, but then the avuncular humorist never had to MEET DAVE. The new Eddie Murphy comedy is like an awkward party guest who hopes you will be charmed by his earnest effort to overcome his lack of social graces, and just when you’re almost on the verge of giving him the benefit of the doubt, he belches loudly and rudely – and expects you to think he’s both cute and funny. Then when you have had enough and are about to throw him out, he breaks down and shows you his sensitive side so you’ll know he’s a warm human being with feelings, not just an obnoxious party crasher. Even if you’re gullible enough to believe him, the party has already been ruined, so while you might refrain from slamming the door in his face, you will not invite him back again.
Dave, of course, is not a person but a robot – more precisely, a spaceship. He’s come to retrieve a MacGuffin – in the form of a tiny meteorite – that landed on Earth three months back, but the people on his planet are so tiny that Dave is the only way they can move among Earth-folk without being crushed. Like almost all movie aliens, Dave’s crew are super smart and technologically advanced, but their intelligence and technology have provided them with only a ridiculously skewered view of Earth – well, American – culture.
Consequently, Dave’s attempt to move unnoticed among the local population are spectacularly unsuccessful (curiously, SATURDAY NIGHT ALUMNI Murphy never explains away his oddball behavior by claming to be from France). Murphy has done this stranger-in-a-strange-land routine before (COMING TO AMERICA and, in a way, A VAMPIRE IN BROOKYN), but here he ups the ante with a series of outrageous mannerisms meant to indicate not only an alien intelligence but a robotic body. The result perfectly achieves the intended awkwardness as he interacts with human. The scenes are, indeed, awkward. Really awkward. Really, really awkward.

So awkward, in fact, that you start to wonder why the filmmakers confused awkward with funny.
Fortunately, Dave’s crew gradually acclimates to Earth. As they do, the scenes grow slightly less awkward but not much funnier. Basically, the aliens are…well, alien – that is, not like us, although the difference is never clearly defined; it’s just assumed because that’s the way sci-fi movies work. Of course no matter how smart and efficient they are, these extra-terrestrials are lacking something – a certain special, almost indefinable quality that they find on Earth. The longer they stay on our planet, the more they start to warm up and exhibit an underlying – what shall we all it? – humanity.
Unfortunately, this humanity consists mostly of conforming to human racial and gender stereotypes: Officer Number 3 (Gabrielle Union) grows jealous that Dave’s captain (also played by Murphy) is paying more attention to a human woman than to her. The macho weapons officers with a hidden feminine side (an amusing Pat Kilbane) camps out after a glimpse of A Chorus Line. The black officers start groovin’ to the funk when Dave puts on a pair of headphones, and soon they are calling themselves “Brother” and making lascivious catcalls at their female comrades.
The funniest thing about all this is that the filmmakers seem to think it’s cool. We should be grateful that he avoided putting a hot-headed Latino in Dave’s head.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a few of the crew get fed up with seeing their captain go native, so they stage a mutiny and resume their mission, which includes using the little meteor to drain the world’s oceans (something to do with supply power to their home world – don’t ask how). This provides an opportunity for some explosions, special effects, and heroics as Dave shoots his way out of a police station and the captain tries to regain control of his ship. It also leads to one of those allegedly heart-breaking moments of sacrifice that Hollywood likes to serve up as if it could be ordered like desert, regardless of whether it goes with the rest of the meal. WALL-E has been criticized for taking a similar smorgasboard approach to storytelling, but even if those dishes did not always compliment each other, they were good on their own terms. MEET DAVE, on the other hand, is likely to inspire your gag reflex. (Do the filmmakers really expect us to lap up sincerity from a film that features not one but two scenes about Dave’s excretory functions – including one in which he literally dumps a load of counterfeit cash?)
Murphy looks great and tries hard – he even does a passable silly walk to rival John Cleese of Monty Python – but he cannot pilot this vehicle to a successful mission. The rest of the cast do their best in the various  straight-man roles. Scott Caan is nice as an enthusiastic young police officer who is the first to realize that an alien has landed on Earth. And Marc Blucas, in a small role as a concerned neighbor, proves that even in the middle of an embarrassing misfire there can be a moment or two that are not cringe-inducing.
The special effects are the usual computer-generated razzle-dazzle: all empty flash and no substance. They are rather like the movies jokes: we see them there but we just don’t care. At least the sets for Dave’s interior are impressive, especially the command center, which looks functional and cool in a GALAXY QUEST kind of way while still resembling the inside of Dave’s head.
If only MEET DAVE had duplicated GALAXY QUEST’S combo of science fiction and comedy. Instead it has fewer laughs than SOLARIS and less sense of wonder than AMERICAN PIE.

TRIVIA

The script for MEET DAVE was co-written by Bill Corbett, whose previous credits include mocking other people’s movies as part of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, THE FILM CREW, and RIFFTRAX. In this post, Crobett speculates on the possibility of doing a Rifftrax for MEET DAVE: in general, he thinks the rifftrax treatment does not work for comedies but he says he would love to try this one (“When the Riffer comes the Riffed. Perfect”).
MEET DAVE (2008). Directed by Brian Robbins. Written by Rob Greenberg & Bill Corbett. Cast: Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Banks, Gabrielle Union, Scott Caan, Ed Helms, Kevin Hart, Mike O’Malley, Pat Kilbane, Judah Friedlander, Marc Blucas.