What Do The Critics Say?

"Heralding a return to form for Eddie Murphy, this cleverly conceived and executed sci-fi comedy offers plenty of laughs for all ages. The considerable challenge for the filmmakers was to streamline three realities and make each one credible. Murphy excels in his dual roles and there is much hilarity as his alien spaceship Dave (built in the image of its captain, also played by Murphy) struggles to blend in with the humans he meets." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE "In its own way, it is a fun movie. Shock of all shocks, what looked like the nadir of the faltering funnyman's career is actually his most watchable live-action comedy since 1999's "Bowfinger" almost a decade ago. It's not every day Eddie Murphy releases something that doesn't make you want to rip your eyes out." Dustin Putman THE MOVIE BOY "It's going to take a lot to get us to forgive them for Norbit, but Eddie Murphy and director Brian Robbins have atoned for some of their cinematic sins with "Meet Dave". Meet Dave owes much to "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and a passing nod to "Men in Black", "Inner Space" and even "Fantastic Voyage". there's enough to like in this one to make it enjoyable, and there's an underlying message about the good side of human nature that is delivered along with the popcorn." Linda Barnard TORONTO STAR "Murphy, both as Dave and the ship's captain is in good form mugging for laughs and getting a few. The set up is clever, with Murphy as Dave hitting The Big Apple, taking in the strange sights and trying to figure out just what makes Earth’s inhabitants tick. The supporting cast is well chosen, with crew members Gabrielle Union and Ed Helms (as #2) standing out." Pete Hammond BOXOFFICE "Director Brian Robbins keeps things moving along briskly and maintains a genial air throughout; all that plus an air-conditioned theatre makes Meet Dave a good bet for family viewing." Liz Braun JAM! MOVIES "If anything in Meet Dave surprises you, you've never seen a family movie before. Instead, go to the movie only for Murphy, whose talents really shine in this role. It's as silly as anything he's ever done, but that's what makes it fun. Murphy is goofing around and playing the clown, without resorting to the offensive stereotypes and vulgar jokes of "Norbit", to say nothing of the ridiculous makeup. His performance and the inherently clever premise provide plenty of big, crowd-pleasing laughs." Josh Hurst CHRISTIANITY TODAY

"Cynics may expect the worst of another Eddie Murphy vehicle involving extraterrestrials, but that only makes "Meet Dave" all the more pleasant a surprise. Production values are first-rate. “Meet Dave” works best when helmer Brian Robbins, working from a clever script by Rob Greenberg and Bill Corbett, uses the SFX trickery relatively sparingly, and allows Murphy to shine as the pic’s most special effect. But "Meet Dave" demonstrates the benefits of emphasizing a human touch over hardware when it comes to funny business." Joe Leydon VARIETY "It's a charmer about inch-high, salt-starved space aliens from planet Nill and their attempts to navigate New York and understand earthlings. "Meet Dave" is an endearing fable about how the species whose resources the aliens want to deplete inadvertently enrich the extraterrestrial's lives." Carrie Rickey THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER "It's kind of sweet, innocent almost, kid-friendly in the best sense. The film gets going with a few nice bits of play-acting. Actually, as Eddie Murphy PG comedies go, "Meet Dave" isn't bad. Big laughs for a Lilliputian comedy." Stephen Cole THE GLOBE AND MAIL "Sometimes a movie catches you in the right mood, and "Meet Dave" may be the right kind of silliness for those who passed on the smirk of "Get Smart" or the stench of "The Love Guru" Surprisingly, Eddie Murphy earns a few hours out of the doghouse." Matt Pais METROMIX "I was pleasantly surprised by this generally entertaining comedy based on a rather ingenious sci-fi concept. Murphy gives one of his more restrained performances, is genuinely funny as the robot trying hard with little background information to act as a human." John Bale THE BLURB "Well, it was certainly a surprise because, as you say, Eddie Murphy's films lately have been pretty depressing, and this is good. I mean, I thought he was very funny in it. He didn't annoy me as much as he usually does at all. The film has quite a lot of wit and intelligence in some of the ways the gags are set up and prepared. There's quite an attractive supporting cast. 3 1/2 STARS." David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES "Eddie Murphy has tended to become a caricature of himself in recent films: that cheesy grin, the hiccup laugh but with Dave he stretches himself. It’s a wonderful performance. I laughed a lot and surprisingly found the ending quite poignant. Meeting Dave was actually a delight. 4 STARS." Margaret Pomeranz ABC AT THE MOVIES

The Inside Story For over two decades, Eddie Murphy has reigned as one of the cinema’s most popular comic actors, unsurpassed in his ability to take on multiple roles in a single project. Murphy is on the very short list of actors who have starred in multiple $US100 million pictures over the past three decades. The impressive list (in US Dollars) includes films such as: "Beverly Hills Cop" ($316,360,478), "Beverly Hills Cop 2" ($299,965,036), "Coming To America" ($288,752,301), "The Nutty Professor" ($273,961,019), "The Nutty Professor II" ($166,339,890) "Daddy Day Care" ($164,433,867), "The Haunted Mansion" ($182,290,266), "Norbit" ($159,313,561) and his voicing of Donkey in the Shrek Franchise has played a valuable part in the success of all three films. In "Meet Dave", Murphy’s prodigious physical and comedic talents are on display like never before, as he takes on two roles: as a man-sized ship operated by one hundred mini-crewpeople and, the captain who runs the ship, which had been built in the captain’s likeness. "It’s Eddie doing what Eddie does best," says director Brian Robbins ("Varsity Blues" & "Coach Carter"). But long before Murphy became 'Big Dave' and 'Little Dave', screenwriters Rob Greenberg and Bill Corbett came up with the idea of a world of little people within the bigger world of a ship that takes human form. The two had met in college at the Yale School of Drama before going their separate ways, each enjoying success as writers: Corbett on the cult series "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and Greenberg on the hit sitcoms "Frasier" and "How I Met Your Mother". For years they discussed working together, and then they met 'Dave'. Greenberg and Corbett spent a lot of time fleshing out the premise, and making it as real as possible within its comedic and far-out context. "You can have a great, silly idea, but turning that into a good story that’s funny and real is the challenge," says Corbett. "We wanted to create strong characters and personalities, each of whom is on a journey towards at least a little bit of humanization." "Nobody’s explored this idea to this extent," says Greenberg. "We wanted to give this big crazy premise some semblance of reality: to create believable relationships and emotion, without sacrificing the big comedy beats." Greenberg & Corbett’s family comedy story caught the attention of producer David T Friendly ("Little Miss Sunshine" & "The Chamber"), whose many credits also includes Twentieth Century Fox’s blockbuster comedy "Dr. Dolittle' which of course, starred Eddie Murphy. "After reading the first act, I knew I wanted to make this movie," says Friendly. "The screenplay evoked fish out of water stories with romantic underpinnings. And it kept surprising me." The script had also come to the attention of producers Jon Berg ("Out of Time") and Todd Komarnicki ("Elf"), then partners in the production company Guy Walks Into A Bar. Like Friendly, they were intrigued by the story’s outrageous fish out of water premise and its merging of physical comedy and emotion. "Todd read the script on a red-eye back to New York," Berg recalls, "and two hours into the flight, he was frantically writing messages that he sent as soon as he landed." And what was the message? "We have to buy this, we have to do this movie." "I know everyone says these kinds of things when touting their projects, but reading the script was a singular experience. I knew that we had to be involved and do whatever necessary to get it made," Komarnicki offered. Around this time, Robbins was immersed in putting the finishing touches on what would become one of 2007’s big hits, "Norbit" and so, had not read the "Meet Dave" script. But the 2007 Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Murphy ("Dreamgirls") had, and the actor (who began his career as a stand-up comedian twenty five years ago and at the age of 19, joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live"), was spurred to move quickly. Robbins remembers Murphy coming up to him and asking: "What are you doing after this?" Robbins replied: "I don’t know, you want to get some dinner?" Murphy then said: "No, not tonight: for your next movie?!" It was then that Murphy handed Robbins the "Meet Dave" script. "The first thing we wanted to do was to make a funny movie. Second to that, we wanted to give the movie a sweetness and emotion. The bonds between the characters give the movie its heart, which is surrounded by the comedy," says Robbins, who revealed that the project’s complex logistics were daunting. There’s an entire world inside Dave/Eddie’s head, where these mini-people exist. Then you have Dave out and about in the 'real' world. Then on top of that, you have Eddie playing a ship on the outside and the ship’s captain on the inside. I was nervous at first, wondering how I was going to make all these elements mesh. What was Dave going to be like because he’s not human and he’s not a robot: he’s a ship!" While Robbins was wrestling with these challenges, Murphy was slipping effortlessly into the shoes of Dave and the Captain. "It took Eddie maybe fourty five minutes on the first day of shooting to make the characters his own," the director recalls. "He made the roles different from anything he’s done before." As he plays this ship moving through New York City, trying to hide the fact that he’s not one of us, there’s an innocence and purity to Murphy's performance that is all in the soulfulness of his eyes." Friendly says Murphy has "a dancer’s grace and a boxer’s focus." "Eddie’s technical precision is put on full display, as he brings to life Dave’s lack of control as the character learns how to walk, throw a baseball, and how to dance. These are all things we take for granted, but Eddie as Dave makes them seem new and wondrous," Komarnicki notes. Production designer Clay A Griffith ("Prozac Nation" & "Elizabethtown") faced a unique challenge: design a ship’s interior that had to structurally resemble the inner workings of the human body. Griffith was inspired by such buildings as Eero Saarinen’s futuristic-looking TWA Flight Centre at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York. "It looks very skull-like and has no right angles in it," Griffith explains. "It is compound curves that meld into other ones. I thought that was a good place to start because the human body doesn’t have a lot of right angles." Griffith also studied the work of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who designed the Milwaukee Art Museum. "It looks like a living thing," he says. "It’s very organic. We created the spinal column as an elevator shaft to go from different levels of the spaceship. You get off at any floor and are at a certain rib cage." Oscar ® winning visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson ("Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring") helped create some of the film’s big set pieces, one of which sees the micro-sized Captain and #3, who are about one and three-quarters inches tall (or 4.5cm), on the loose in the streets of New York. They must navigate the strange, foreboding; and to them, jumbo-sized world known as Times Square. Once again, Murphy (who made his bigscreen feature film debut alongside Nick Nolte in the 1982 film, "48 Hrs") rose to the occasion. 2003 Young Hollywood Award winner Elizabeth Banks ("Definitely, Maybe") was cast as Gina Morrison, a fiery and beautiful artist and single mother who literally runs into Dave early in the story. "We actors like to use the expression of 'being in control of our instrument', our 'instrument' being our bodies. But I have never worked with someone who is more in control of his body than Eddie. I mean everything he does is so carefully planned and executed: every gesture, every movement of his hands and mouth, he’s totally in control of everything." Producer David T Friendly ("The Concierge" & "Laws of Attraction") notes that Banks, Gabrielle Union, Scott Caan, Ed Helms, Kevin Hart and the rest of the cast, brought out the best in Murphy, as he did with them. "Eddie is better with funny people around him, and they are funnier because of Eddie," says Friendly. Banks ("Spider-Man" 1, 2, & 3), whose Gina makes a key emotional connection with Murphy’s Dave, was one of the last to be cast. The filmmakers say, she was worth the wait. "Elizabeth is a rare comedienne," states Komarnicki. "She has that Lucille Ball quality, where she can do antic comedy but with a quick wit and impressive improvisational skills." Banks, who describes Gina as a "downtown, artsy type who loves to dance"; enjoyed playing the bond between Gina and Dave, especially during a scene in which the two are conversing about one of Gina’s paintings. "Dave is befuddled by a strangeness he feels when looking at the painting, when Gina talks about how it came from her heart. I loved how Eddie conveyed the character’s first stirrings of emotion," she says. "It’s a scene of purity, simplicity and innocence; and laughs." Austyn Lind Myers makes his film debut as Gina’s eleven year old son, Josh Morrison. He is the first person to meet Dave. Josh, who is not very popular at school, makes a fast friend with Dave, introducing the strange newcomer to some local delights, like a local street fair at which Dave participates in a Hot Dog eating competition. "Josh believes in Dave from the beginning," says Myers. For the ship’s second in command (the aptly named #2), the filmmakers cast Screen Actors Guild Award winner Ed Helms ("The Office"). Helms had a lot of fun playing the micro-sized but macro-ambitious #2. "His name signifies his rank on the ship, which is number two, which is not number one," says the actor (who plays Andy Bernard on "The Office"). "Which means he’s second in command of the entire crew, except for one other person." 2001 Young Hollywood Award winner Gabrielle Union ("Welcome to Collinwood" & "Bad Boys II") was cast as the ship’s cultural officer #3. And what were #3's official shipboard duties? Union notes with a laugh that #3’s key tasks include "figuring out what Doritos are and explaining Barack Obama to the rest of the crew." And her chief tools in researching the outside world’s cultural and historical references? "Google, Yahoo and Perez Hilton." Much of the film’s humor and emotion comes as Dave and company encounter the City of New York's unique features and energy. The city is a key element of the story, so as producer David T Friendly pointed out, critical scenes had to be shot on location in the Big Apple. "One of the heroes of the movie is the City of New York with all its chaos and color and craziness. And it’s only fitting that some of those scenes are set on Liberty Island; the welcoming beacon for so many newcomers to the U.S. Like Dave. Synopsis

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. He’s forty-something, pleasant looking and nattily dressed, even if his attire; an all-white suit, black tie and a neat black handkerchief tucked in his pocket, harkens back to the disco-centric 1970s. But beyond his odd apparel, there’s something people he meets, just can't put their finger on. He’s definitely not from the neighborhood. That's not even close. And for a good reason. You see, Dave is a spaceship and inside 'Dave' is a crew of well-trained miniature people, a world within a world, that feverishly attempts to direct Dave’s every action and conversation. These visitors from a far away world have come to Earth because it has something that will save their's.

The Verdict "What the hell is Eddie Murphy up to? Is his latest film one heck of a big suckup to all those wacky American film critics who gave his last film, the very funny and extremely clever "Norbit" an absolute verbal going over? It must be, because "Meet Dave" is not only aimed at Murphy fans, it's also damn good family fun. Golly gee! There's no fart scenes, it's as wholesome as good ol' american apple pie, there's lashings of wry moments guaranteed to put a smile on your dial, the SPX are good and yes, the film has a good sprinkling of laugh out loud moments. If Murphy keeps this up, he'll soon be back in favour with those whitey film critics, whose vitriolic verbalizing can send a film straight to DVD! Talking about straight, I have to warn readers there is (wait for it), a character who has homosexual tendencies. Now if you're not comfortable with that and you have the kids with you, please ensure you quickly cover their eyes during the scenes in which this homosexual character appears. After all, we don't want the little ones seeing anything as offensive as this, now do we? Heaven forbid, it could 'turn' some of our nations future leaders and male role models into screaming little queens, who will suddenly find themselves attracted to a career in either ballroom dancing or women's hairdressing. Even worse, they may succumb to what truly is every parents ultimate nightmare: they could end up with a career in the fashion industry. If you can put that aside, "Meet Dave" will provide good 'family time'. Younger (but not too young) viewers will, I am sure, find the antics of spaceship Dave and it's miniature crew of Nillians, squealingly funny. The humour also works for adults too. Good fun for all ages. Works well. 3 1/2 STARS." Crew Bytes "MEET DAVE" was .......
directed by Brian Robbins ["The Perfect Score", "Wild Hogs" and "Norbit"]; screenplay by Rob Greenberg ["Spellbound" and "Spellbound"] and Bill Corbett ["Assignment: Venezuela and Other Shorts"]; art direction by Beat Frutiger ["Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines", "The Haunted Mansion", "Die Hard 4.0" and "Transformers"]; costume design by Ruth E Carter ["Shaft", "Dr Dolittle 2" and "Daddy Day Care"]; production design by Clay A Griffith ["Domestic Disturbance", "Elizabethtown" and "Lucky You"]; edited by 1997 American Cinema Editors EDDIE Award winner Ned Bastille ["Looking for Richard", "The Shaggy Dog" and "Norbit"]; cinematography by J Clark Mathis ["The Perfect Score", "Happy Endings" and "Rocky Balboa"]; original music by three time EMMY Award winner John Debney ["Bruce Almighty", "Evan Almighty", "Sin City" and "Zathura: A Space Adventure"]. Who's Who?

Eddie Murphy Elizabeth Banks Austin Lynd Myers Ed Helms Gabrielle Union Pat Kilbane Kevin Hart Adam Tomei Jane Bradbury Judah Friedlander Mike O'Malley Marc Blucas Scott Caan Charlie Guardino Jim Turner Brian Huskey Shawn Christian Brad Wilson Miguel A Núñez Jr John Gatins Nick Berman Smith Cho Yung-I Chang David 'Goldy' Goldsmith Paul Scheer James Michael Connor Stephanie Venditto Craig Gellis Tim Sitarz Michael Izquierdo Kristen Connolly Floyd Levine Richie Allan

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Dave/Captain Gina Morrison Josh # 2 – 2nd In Command # 3 – Cultural Officer # 4 – Security Office r # 17 # 35 # 81 – Female Crew Engineer Knox Mark Dooley Police Sergeant Doctor Lieutenant Right Arm Lieutenant Left Arm Lieutenant Right Leg Burly Crew Member Air Traffic Controller Young Bully Lieutenant Left Leg Apple Genius Lieutenant Buttocks Lieutenant Kneecap Principal MRI Technician Robber #1 Robber #2 Make Out Guy Make Out Girl Old Man On Toilet Homeless Man

Run Time 90 minutes Rated PG [AUST] Copyright ©2008 - 20th Century Fox - All Rights Reserved ©2008 All Rights Reserved The Movie Pages - Protected by Australian, International, Copyright & Trademark Laws.