STUDIO: Fox
RELEASE DATE: November 25, 2008
STARRING: Eddie Murphy, Gabrielle Union, Elizabeth Banks, Scott Caan, Kevin Hart, and Ed Helms
WRITTEN BY: Bill Corbett & Rob Greenberg
DIRECTED BY: Brian Robbins
FEATURES: Crew Profiles
Gag Reel
Deleted Scenes
Alternate Ending
Making Of
Fox Movie Channel Presents Life After Film School
For Movie Channel Presents Making A Scene
For Movie Channel Presents World Premiere

Eddie Murphy recently said that he's considering retirement. Some of us hope he would have considered it a few years back so total crap like The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Daddy Day Care, The Haunted Mansion, Norbit, and, now, Meet Dave would never get made. I understand that every edgy comedian not named George Carlin needs to eventually go from making movie for adults to making movies for their kids - Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, many more - but perhaps more than any of the others, the Murphy of the '80s would honestly kill the Murphy of the '00s. Watching Meet Dave on Blu-Ray, I kept thinking about Delirious, Raw, Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, 48 Hours, and Murphy's work on Saturday Night Live and it's almost hard to convince yourself that it's the same actor. It's ironic that in the awful Meet Dave, Murphy basically plays a shell, a spaceship occupied by alien beings, because it feels like that's what happened to the real actor circa 1988. Since then, it's been a steady foot race downhill (with brief breaks for Dreamgirls and the quality voice work in the Shrek movies) for Murphy and Meet Dave is arguably at the bottom. The old saying is "Why not stop when you're ahead?" With Murphy threatening retirement, it might be more appropriate to ask "Why not stop when you're so far behind?"

It could be the bad will that Eddie Murphy has engendered in this critic due to his consistently awful output. Perhaps Meet Dave might have worked with another actor or with a more talented director than the awful Brian Robbins (The Perfect Score, Norbit). There's a decent idea and a strong pair of actresses in Gabrielle Union and Elizabeth Banks, who apparently signed a contract with Hollywood that dictated she needs to be in every other comedy in 2008. Meet Dave opens with a tiny meteor crashing into a young boy's (Austin Myers) room. It turns out that the space rock was actually sent to drain the planet's oceans of their water by an alien race. The beings send a ship after the meteor which happens to be a robot that looks and sounds like Eddie Murphy. The robot "Dave" is filled with tiny people, including the ship's captain also played by Murphy, and an entire crew. Meet Dave is a family comedy aimed squarely at 8-year-old boys, but even they aren't going to laugh at the stupid physical jokes and completely inert screenplay. Banks brings a little life to her single mother, but Murphy makes a ridiculous string of bad decisions, including making his captain sound like an upper-crust teacher and misplaying the physical humor. He seems bored with his own shtick.

The BD presentation of Meet Dave lives up to the expectations set by the movie. I can't imagine that many people will be diving deeper into the experience of this film, but there are some deleted scenes, an alternate ending, some standard Fox Movie Channel material, and traditional EPK stuff. It's all generic. Kind of like the movie itself. The video and audio on Meet Dave are not notable in either direction. The picture doesn't particularly stand out and the dialogue is more muffled than expected, but neither are distracting. It's only if you look closely that you realize that Meet Dave doesn't even really stand up to technical scrutiny. When the film was released in theaters, practically no one noticed (it only made $5 million TOTAL on a $60 million budget). Keep up the good work people.