Eddie Murphy vehicle, casting him in only two roles instead of his customary multiple, that of an anthropomorphic alien spaceship designed in the image of its captain, and that of the Lilliputian captain himself, sent to Earth from the dying planet Nil to retrieve a lime-sized orb that can drain the oceans for their needed salt, thereby saving Nil and dooming Earth. The ship’s crew, meanwhile, come to be affected by Earth’s atmosphere (the latent homosexual discovering Broadway show tunes, the latent romantic discovering décolletage), and come to understand that Earth is worth saving too. A legitimate science-fiction idea, regardless of how unseriously taken. In his guise as the spaceship-cum-robot, Murphy executes some amusing comedy of mockery in attempting to fit in with human society, grotesquely imitating the human smile, the human laugh, human small talk. But the manufacture of gags is plagued by inconsistency (why is the tiny captain so articulate while his man-sized simulacrum is so tongue-tied?) as well as by excessive demands and low standards. With Elizabeth Banks, Gabrielle Union, and Scott Caan; directed by Brian Robbins. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd
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