Meet Dave" is the kind of bland, generic, high-concept midsummer comedy that drives a critic to the thesaurus in search of new ways to say "vapid." You know these movies: Headlined by a major star, supported by a cast of head shots with feet, working from a script by 17 writers, they're not made as much as extruded. They're product, pure and simple, the pop culture equivalent of anything stamped out at a Detroit auto plant.

And their musical scores, for some reason, generally feature the same syncopated, pizzicato string arrangement that signals to viewers that they're watching a safe, utterly disposable comedy appropriate for the entire family, as long as they're just drunk enough on Big Slurps and super-size nachos.

"Meet Dave" doesn't feature the syncopated pizzicato, which is, at least, one mark in its favor. Indeed, in the dubious firmament of like-spirited enterprises -- think "License to Wed" or "Fool's Gold" -- it doesn't qualify as the worst of the worst. And it actually features a rather clever premise, ideally suited to the gifts of its star, Eddie Murphy: physical comedy and mimicry.

Murphy plays two roles here. One, the Captain, is a two-inch-high alien in charge of a tiny crew of interstellar explorers. Dave is the name of the crew's ship -- a human-size robot modeled on the Captain -- which has just crashed into New York's Liberty Island. "Meet Dave" chronicles the exploits of Dave as he meets and tries to blend in with the locals; meanwhile, each of his "human" functions is being controlled inside his body by one of the Captain's tiny crew. Kind of hard to wrap your mind around, I know, but imagine a slightly surreal version of "Star Trek" -- or at least "Galaxy Quest" -- with more scatological humor, and you get the idea.

-- Ann Hornaday (July 11, 2008)

Contains bawdy and suggestive humor, action and some profanity.