Avoid Dave

1999. That's the last time I enjoyed a non animated, non musical Eddie Murphy movie (it was Bowfinger, incidentally). His latest lowbrow summer comedy will not be ending the run.

Taking on multiple roles, as usual, Eddie is doubly unfunny as both the miniature captain of an alien spaceship searching for a lost artifact on Earth and the human shaped craft itself.

The small object they seek will save their home planet and possibly destroy Earth whilst doing so, or so the vague plot suggests. This is sort of glossed over in the pursuit of new poo gags.

As the mechanical 'Dave' wanders around New York drawing attention to himself whilst learning about walking, shopping, eating, dancing and other obvious verbs, so the crew learn lessons about their inner feelings... blah blah blah.

To be fair on Murphy, these characters don't do him any favours. Neither inappropriate face pulling Eddie or faux posh accent reserved Eddie are fleshed-out enough to be that endearing. More like annoying.

The bigger problem, though, is the workmanlike script which literally goes through the motions: juxtaposing Dave's friendship with a widowed, attractive single mum (Elizabeth Banks) and her bullied kid, and the Captain's all-work-no-play relationship with attractive crew mate Gabrielle Union.

One dimensional supporting characters include a tough looking alien finding his inner queen, a stereotype 'nice guy' who serves no purpose at all and an NY beat cop (the Ocean movies' Scott Caan), who suspects an alien visit based on the flimsiest of evidence.

Aside from a few neat miniaturization effects – some using that old chestnut, the over-sized prop – this hasn't even got imaginative visual design to its name. The spacecraft décor, in particular, looks like it was kitted out from Ikea during their sales.

The star received a lot of critical flack for last year's Norbit, so, at the very least, it's good to see Murphy taking a break from the latex fat suits and disguise make-up shenanigans.