It’s the shank of summertime in our part of paradise, so what do you say we go inside a dark movie theater and suspend our disbelief for a while? Actually, come July 11 you are going to have to have a serious disbelief suspension system to survive Eddie Murphy’s newest comedy, Meet Dave. On the face of it, it sounds like a pretty good premise, even if it was already used for a Black Crowes music video: Little quarter inch people crawling out of the ears of a regular sized human. In this case, the humanoid is really a spaceship modeled in the exact likeness of its teeny captain, and Eddie Murphy plays both. There isn’t a much trickier genre than sci-fi comedy, although many space movies are inadvertently hilarious. Sadly, not even Murphy’s belated “Stayin’ Alive†John Travolta dance parody can save this stinker. It’s a mystery why he would choose to work with director Brian Robbins, who took the star to new lows in Norbit, a film that netted Murphy five Worst Actor awards from the Razzies. Perhaps he should leave the playing of multiple roles to Mike Myers and concentrate on getting just a single good performance in a movie worth watching. Meet Dave is, sadly, not. The Naked Cowboy’s cameo is funnier than the rest of the movie, and that’s downright tragic.
If it’s believing you want, try The X-Files: I Want to Believe. First of all, you can believe that really is rapper Xzibit, and that longhaired Gillian Anderson looks even more ravishing as an older Scully. David Duchovny slips into the role of Fox Mulder like an old pair of slippers, but he’s still buff enough to do his own stunts. Anderson said he made her feel old. Creator Chris Carter is the director so it’s true to its television roots, and we will leave it to you to ferret out the Smoking Man on July 14.
Christian Bale is back as Batman in Dark Knight but we are somewhat disappointed. All the other actors who played the batty avenger have had pouty full lips below the mask, complementing the pointy ears in a superb manner. But that’s our personal issue, clearly. Kudos to Michael Caine as Alfred and a posthumous huzzah to Heath Ledger for a cool and twisted Joker. We like our comic book heroes dark, and DK does not disappoint.
