Meet Dave

Aside from some unnecessarily crude stereotypes, Eddie Murphy's least-painful comedy in years has a certain peculiar charm.

This unfairly maligned sci-fi comedy testifies that Eddie Murphy still has the gift of surprise.

It's nice that Murphy and director Brian Robbins rebounded from the woeful Norbit. Meet Dave and laugh more than you expect.

Meet Dave may be the best Eddie Murphy movie in memory, which certainly isn't saying much.

In Meet Dave, family-friendly as a Fourth of July picnic, Murphy and Norbit director Brian Robbins redeem themselves with a performance and scenario that might have been developed for Steve Martin.

Meet Dave isn't great comedy, and it isn't the sort of children's film that will be fondly remembered in years to come. But it's a pleasant enough diversion, and the kids like it.

Meet Dave, directed by Brian Robbins, is a one-joke pony of a movie. But it's a clever one.

Meet Dave appeals to base forms of humor without resorting to audience condescension, a quality that would make its conclusive morals sufficiently profound were its arguments not so blandly developed.

The summer popcorn flick manages to deliver more than the standard sci-fi send-up, thanks to a solid supporting cast –- most of whom come from TV -– that help bolster Murphy's average work.

Contrary to appearances Meet Dave isn't terrible, with several laugh-out-loud moments funnier than anything in, say, a month.

It's all light and genial, and the miniature scale keeps the obligatory action climax from becoming too much of an assault.

Eddie Murphy is one of the most alarmingly gifted comic actors America has ever produced but he persists in making comedies that are beneath him.

Though the story starts off as a mess and only gets worse, there's some solid physical comedy.

The movie may tilt a little too young and wholesome for Murphy's Raw crowd -- it's aimed squarely at a preteen audience, likely to laugh when a miniature Murphy takes refuge next to a hydrant and gets whizzed on by a dog.

If you're a big Eddie Murphy fan, you've definitely come to the right place: He's all over the screen for practically every second. Others are likely to find it a fairly mediocre, one-joke affair and another exercise in big star self-indulgence.

It's comedy that doesn't ask anyone, onscreen or in the audience, to try too hard.

Meet Dave is a dopey science-fiction comedy that makes children squeal with laughter. It's the bum jokes.

The heartbreaking thing about Meet Dave is its occasional funniness amid a sea of pablum. If it were completely rank, it'd be less frustrating.

Eddie Murphy inside Eddie Murphy? Interesting concept. Too bad Meet Dave isn’t as funny as the premise.

Parents will find much to laugh at in the film’s first 30 minutes or so, but after that will likely begin unobtrusively texting friends as the film sinks into the Pit of Poop Jokes and Saccharine Life Lessons.

Aided perhaps by the lowest of low expectations, it turns out that it's a very funny and even sweet family film. Meet Dave isn't perfect, but it's a perfectly respectable demonstration of Murphy's comic talents and likability.

It's a shame Eddie Murphy is most comfortable, at 47, buried under prosthetics, playing gargantuan people or large numbers of characters.

The science-fiction comedy continues Eddie Murphy's streak of middling, mildly amusing movies aimed at families.

It says volumes about the state of Eddie Murphy's comedy career that Meet Dave, his latest, is his least hateful film in years.

Meet Dave, isn't likely to win Murphy another Oscar nomination. But at least it allows him to do what he does best -- loads of physical comedy -- and doesn't rely principally on special effects for its humor.

The movie packs a fair amount of visual pizazz, from the squeaky-clean cityscapes to the understated special effects. Families who take an evening to Meet Dave could do worse in the risky world of innocuous summer fun.

While Meet Dave is nowhere near the caliber of the comedies that made Murphy a household name in the 1980s, you’ve got to hand it to him -- he’s never played a spaceship before.

Predictably, the aliens have come to earth with bad intentions, but then learn that earth isn't such a bad place after all. Aw. Cue the After School Special music.

It's your basic fish-out-of-water-trying-to-suck-away-the-water plot, with far too many subplots for a 90-minute movie.

At least Eddie Murphy isn't knocking about in a fat suit in his latest comedy, Meet Dave. But there's not much else to recommend in this banal fish-out-of-water comedy. The lackluster title hints at the dull, witless and hackneyed story.

The filmmakers might have had Galaxy Quest in mind, but they ended up with a film light-years from that modern classic. The jokes fall flat. All of them, even the physical comedy bits which might usually get a pass.

On just about every occasion in Meet Dave, Murphy appears to be on the verge of cracking himself up. This is good news. At least someone found him funny.

For a big-budgeted feature, the computer graphics and accompanying effects really aren't very special. You'd expect to see chinzty-looking visual like this in one of those made-for-Sci-Fi-Channel cheese-fests not in a major studio release.

With a plot that could have been dreamed up by screenwriters smoking hallucinogens while reading Gulliver's Travels, Meet Dave is stupid, unfunny and inane.

Murphy, teaming again with his Norbit director Brian Robbins, is assuming we'll all line up for lazyass toilet jokes and pay for the privilege. Prove him wrong, people, please.

The new film is mildly amusing family entertainment, but when discussing the career of one of our most seasoned comic actors, "mildly amusing" can only be regarded as a letdown.

The script, by Rob Greenberg and Bill Corbett, is a collection of obvious embarrassment-humor gags (an uncomprehending Dave drinks a bottle of ketchup!) tempered by eye-rolling sentimentality.

Dumb jokes, cheap special effects and Murphy's mugging add up to an eternity in 92 minutes.

It's depressing to watch Murphy so disinterested in what he's doing, when fans are still interested in seeing what he does.