Meet Dave (PG)

(AP)

Well, at least it's not Daddy Day Care, or Norbit, or Pluto Nash, or Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, or... come to think of it, how has Eddie Murphy managed to carve such a long career out of so many terrible movies?

Compared with the above, Meet Dave perhaps doesn't strain the bounds of acceptability, but it's still bloody annoying to watch him as a man who falls to Earth, searching for some vital space-bauble and finding instead – groan – his basic humanity. Elizabeth Banks is charming as the single mom whose son Dave befriends – too charming for this movie – but the gloopy sub-ET moments and the unlovely squirts of product placement ensure that the minutes tick by very slowly.