Meet Dave review

There is no major Hollywood star who has made quite as many bad films as Eddie Murphy: in the last few years alone we have had to endure Norbit, The Haunted Mansion, the Nutty Professor series, Daddy Day Care and - worst of all - The Adventures of Pluto Nash. It's hard to know what's more depressing: the fact that these films actually exist or that some of them have been spectacularly successful at the box office, netting the star at least $10m each time.

As a result it is very easy to forget that Murphy is a uniquely talented comedy performer and actor who was justly Oscar-nominated in 2007 for his role in Dreamgirls and who helped make Shrek one of the best animated comedy series so far this century.

Meet Dave falls firmly into the 'bad' category. It's the kind of film where you wonder how anyone responsible could have looked at the final version and declared themselves satisfied (although as it is from the director of Norbit this is entirely possible). Shabby special effects, an unoriginal idea and a plot that runs out of steam all combine to make this a cinematic shambles.

But yet through the mess there is a reason why it is not quite Murphy's worst film and that is Murphy himself. He plays both an alien robot named Dave sent to Earth to steal our salt supplies for the benefit of his home planet as well as the captain of the robot, an uptight mini-Murphy who attempts to avoid inevitable disaster. That's really all there is to the plot, as it is simply a series of increasingly unfunny observations about our planet with some terrible sentimentality thrown in for bad measure.

And yet for the first 15 minutes it seems possibly promising thanks to Murphy's silent comedy-style tricks and turns. This is where the few laughs are, in a series of Tati-esque sequences when the robot first lands on Earth. But they are short-lived moments and certainly not a reason to spend any money whatsoever on this film.

Paul Hurley