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Meet Dave

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 18 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Sci-fi
Written by:
Rob Greenberg
Bill Corbett
Directed by: Brian Robbins
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 11, 2008
DVD: November 25, 2008
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG for bawdy and suggestive humor, action and some language
Starring Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Banks, Gabrielle Union, Ed Helms, Judah Friedlander, and Pat Kilbane
Dave Ming Chang, newly arrived in New York City, may be the ultimate fish out of water. There's something about him that's not quite right - for starters, he seems remarkably out of place and uncomfortable in his own body. And for good reason: "Dave" is not a man at all, but a ship made in the image of its miniature-sized captain. It's little Eddie in the BIG family comedy Meet Dave. (20th Century Fox)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Hardball Norbit Ready to Rumble The Perfect Score The Shaggy Dog Varsity Blues
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TV Guide Ken Fox
Aside from some unnecessarily crude stereotypes, Eddie Murphy's least-painful comedy in years has a certain peculiar charm.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
this unfairly maligned sci-fi comedy testifies that Eddie Murphy still has the gift of surprise.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
Aimed squarely at the same family audiences that flocked to Murphy's "Doctor Dolittle" comedies, this is a lightly amusing and surprisingly sweet Fox release.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Meet Dave isn't great, but it's good enough. And it proves once again that Murphy can do anything - even a PG comedy in which he isn't a donkey.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
Actually, as Eddie Murphy PG comedies go, Meet Dave isn't bad. In fact, it's kind of sweet, innocent almost – kid-friendly in the best sense.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It's a good-natured if flimsy comedy that, at the very least, suggests that Murphy hasn't completely lost whatever made him funny in the first place.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Tim Grierson
Meet Dave feels a little too cuddly and familiar to be more than a programmatic summer kids' movie -- better than average, but not worth phoning home about.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
This is made-for-TV material dressed up by Eddie Murphy's participation into a theatrical release.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Isn't likely to win Murphy another Oscar nomination, but it allows him to do what he does best - loads of physical comedy.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
The "Star Trek" gibes feel especially lazy, since the movie ought to be "Men in Black" kicky, not sketch-comedy dusty.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
More palatable than "Norbit" but equally uninspired, Murphy's benign, pedestrian Meet Dave mostly gives us "Mr. Ed," with a bit of Crazy Eddie mixed in.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Though mildly amusing, Murphy's two characters in Meet Dave -- a wee captain and a humanoid spaceship -- neither tax nor stretch him.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
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.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
Eddie Murphy's amusingly out of this world in this otherwise tired vehicle.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
There's no real wit or cleverness to the script.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Proven comic talents like Judah Friedlander and Ed Helms make up much of Murphy's crew, but apart from speaking in contraction-free spaceman-ese, the film doesn't give them anything funny to do.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Sam Adams
Pays lip service to the joys of exploring new worlds, but it never steps off the tour bus.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Dumbfoundingly erratic, for the most part, but smart and funny from time to time.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The kind of bland, generic, high-concept midsummer comedy that drives a critic to the thesaurus in search of new ways to say "vapid."
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
The insipid gags fail to exploit Murphy's gift for physical humor, Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union are merely decorative, and Ed Helms (The Office), playing a character called #2, looks appropriately constipated.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Murphy has fallen back into the comfortable rut of sloppy family comedies that are low on laughs and high on toilet jokes.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
If only the movie had heeded its own advice and tried to be different from the standard formula.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
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.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
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.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
After his disastrous outing in 200X with "The Adventures of Pluto Nash," there was no direction for Murphy to head but up in terms of another space alien movie. Indeed, Meet Dave is a step up, but that's only in relation to Pluto Nash.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
EverythingIAm gave it a0:
Horrible. Save us all and just retire Mr. Murphy, your films are crap.
Chad S. gave it a4:
Most New Yorkers aren't the trusting sort. Most New York moms would be hesitant about leaving their sons home alone with a stranger they barely knew. After hitting a brother from another planet with her car, Gina Morrison(Elizabeth Banks) discerns nothing at all peculiar about his "coincidental" materialization across her apartment window, or the fact that he's injury-free, without a trace of bloody muss on his body and natty attire. "Meet Dave" is a comedy, but a comedy needs some semblance of realism in order for the farcial circumstances to provoke unstrained laughter from the audience. In Ron Howard's "Splash", the mermaid played by Daryl Hannah may act unusual, but not unusual enough to try our patience. Even when "Madison" shatters all the lobster tanks as she says her name using the aquatic parlance(right then and there, the Tom Hanks character should recognize that the girl isn't human), we permit the film some leeway, because the mermaid had seemed human enough to our satisfaction. That's why "Meet Dave" doesn't work. Dave's behavior is so erratic, the mother should either drive this odd behaving man to a hospital for a full psychiatric evaluation, or stay far, far, far away. She seems stupid. And stupid people are anathemic to comedy. An even bigger mess posited by the film's refusal to enmesh the fantastical in a lifelike milieu, are the aliens themselves, who seem suitably human before they supposedly acquire our cultural and social norms. The only flash of wit on display in "Meet Dave" is the alien's Chinese surname, in conjunction with the spoof for Nike's "I am Tiger Woods" television advert(the one where people of all colors claimed to be Eldrick). Like Dave, Woods is not completely black(he's actually 1/2 Asian, 1/4 Black, and 1/4 American Indian), even though the golfing phenom is marketed like he was a brother from another planet.
CommandoDude gave it a7:
Unlike these other 4 I'm going to give this movie a realistic review. It was a very good comedy, but it wasn't the best. It had good moments, with funny or sometimes unfunny stereotypes. And seeing Eddie Murphy, pilot Eddie Murphy as an alien unfamiliar in Earth Culture was hilarious. Towards the end, the movie they had the cliche 'Alien says good bye to humanity to leave' and the 'Two characters fall in love' which made me like it less. Deffinately worth seeing in theaters. Won't be your favorite though.
Neil J. gave it a0:
It's pretty interesting how much unfunny trash people have allowed Eddie Murphy to make in the last 20+ years. Steve Martin is one of his true rivals; he hasn't done anything that wasn't violently uncomic in a few decades either, and yet he too keeps getting leading roles in superfluous gross-out 'family' pics and other similar dreck. That people are still giving Murphy what looks like vanity projects, and that people watch it, is simply mind-blowing. I guess people really are that stupid.
Unknown Unknown gave it a10:
Good comedy by my favorite actor Eddie Murphy. I found only his acting was good, but i felt the effects could have been made better. Overall i like it.
Lis D. gave it a10:
Made me laugh.
