The movieverse is ruled by expectations. Just as mechanics of humour depend upon puncturing what we believe the likeliest outcome, box office takings are dictated by films conforming to type. Liked Baby Geniuses 1? Then you’ll love Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2, should they allow such things in the secure padded cell where you currently reside.
Eddie Murphy’s latest film presents us with an intriguing violation of one of these natural laws. Certainly, a movie starring Eddie Murphy as a spaceship that looks like Eddie Murphy and is piloted by, oh yes, Eddie Murphy, could hardly be described as a turn up for the books. In fact, Meet Dave is, for those of you who love sums, Eddie Murphy squared. The titular intergalactic Dave, in common with the heroes of Coming To America and Holy Man, is an out-of-towner. Here, he crash-lands on NY’s Liberty Island, hoping to save his own planet by pilfering the oceans of this one. Like The Nutty Professor, our hero is an amiable clod, a fish out of water, who, in time, brightens everyone’s day. Like Daddy Day Care, there’s some squishy bonding with a curly haired moppet along the way. And like Trading Places or Bowfinger, there’s a mountain high concept – The Numbskulls but with Eddie Murphy – that actually works.
The jokes are precise and predictable. Falling over gags outnumber lavatory moments by a ratio of four to one. These, in turn, are 20 times more likely than cutesy moments. It’s a mathematical formula known among interested parties as Murphy’s Law.
Somehow it works. There isn’t a single stab at humour that could be described as novel. The Big Gay Stereotype, replete with moustache, is a scandalous cliché. The film’s sidestepping of what should be a multi-racial romance is unfortunate. But Mr. Murphy still possesses enough charm to carry off the most overused comedy material.
Meet Dave, therefore, is a conundrum, for it flies in the face of the incongruity variously described by Kant and Kierkegaard as the foundation for funny. Could it be that European philosophy has no place in a review of an Eddie Murphy flick? Or is it just that after the atrocious Norbit anything was going to seem like an unalloyed masterpiece?
See. It really is all about expectations, particularly when they’re very, very low.