MEET DAVE
Funny, heartfelt, and better saved for a discerning family night at home.
Should You Watch It?
MEET DAVE has a lot going for it. Eddie Murphy gives one of his funniest, most winsome performances, and the movie includes many funny jokes, heartwarming moments, and morally uplifting scenes. Its central story also offers opportunities to talk about compassion, self-control, and protecting others.
But the movie goes off track during its second half. Its Romantic worldview argues that suppressing emotion makes people violent and incapable of love. One crew member discovers his “effeminate homosexual side,” and the movie includes humor about heterosexual men not dancing well. The review also notes plot holes, an unresolved crisis for the Planet Nil, and some cheesy special effects.
Because the content rating is −1, this is a discernment choice rather than a family-wide recommendation. Wait for home, where you can guide older children through the movie’s ideas and humor.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESA tiny captain from the Planet Nil arrives on Earth inside a human-sized spaceship designed to look like him. The ship’s mission is to find a powerful orb that can drain salt from Earth’s oceans and provide energy for Nil.
The captain learns that a young widow’s son has found the orb, but a school bully has taken it. As the boy helps the talking spaceship search for the bully, contact with humans begins changing the captain and his crew.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means this is an entertaining but uneven comedy. Eddie Murphy is the film’s greatest strength, giving one of his funniest and most winsome performances. The movie also delivers many funny jokes and some heartwarming, touching, morally uplifting moments.
The second half weakens the experience. The movie has plot holes, including the unresolved plight of the Planet Nil, and some of the special effects are a little cheesy. The humor also becomes less effective when it turns toward homosexual jokes and Romantic themes.
The Worldview
MEET DAVE presents a light, eclectic pagan worldview alongside strong Romantic themes and strong moral and redemptive elements. It includes positive acknowledgements of God, asking for God’s help, and a Christian reference.
The film portrays the Nillians as people who have suppressed their emotions. It suggests that this suppression has made their society violent, destructive, and unable to express compassion or love. The story therefore treats emotional release as a path toward human flourishing. But the review argues that this message can also encourage outlandish and offensive behavior at the expense of moral order, rational thought, and the Word of God.
The movie’s treatment of compassion is worth examining. True compassion does not require abandoning standards or discipline. Biblical compassion responds wisely and morally rather than allowing every feeling to rule.
The film’s central question is whether emotion should govern human behavior. Scripture calls believers to renewed thinking: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Light eclectic pagan worldview with strong Romantic themes, strong moral and redemptive elements with a Christian reference that include a couple positive acknowledgements of God and asking for God’s help, plus some politically correct homosexual content when a side character turns effeminate, which adds to the movie’s Romantic themes; two obscenities, 11 light profanities (such as “My God”), some toilet humor in two scenes; sometimes slightly strong comic violence and action violence such as humanistic android spaceship lands face down in dirt, android spaceship hit by car which knocks one foot sideways, man knocked out by baseball, police shoot at android spaceship, spaceship fires lasers in police station which destroy walls and objects, scared man kicks a cat hard, tiny people almost squashed by large speeding cars, tiny people washed away by liquids going down throat of android spaceship; no sex scenes but couple kisses passionately in park and a side character acts in an effeminate manner in several scenes; partial rear male nudity in one scene and upper male nudity in another scene; alcohol use and apparent drunkenness; no smoking or drugs; and, aliens make money to pay for things, aliens want to take ocean salt from earth, alien crew stages a mutiny, and comment is made about heterosexual men not dancing very well.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
The captain begins to care about the people he was sent to harm. How should compassion shape the way we treat people, and what limits should guide it?
Matthew 22:39 · Philippians 1:9–10The Nillians have suppressed their emotions. Why is self-control different from denying every feeling?
Galatians 5:22–23 · Proverbs 25:28The movie connects emotional freedom with love and compassion. How can feelings help us, and how can they mislead us?
Jeremiah 17:9 · Romans 12:2The review warns that compassion should not remove all standards of discipline. Why can loving parents set boundaries for their children?
Proverbs 22:15 · Hebrews 12:11The Final Word
MEET DAVE is funny, winsome, and occasionally touching. It also becomes uneven and troubling when its Romantic themes and homosexual humor take over. Watch it at home, if you choose, so you can help older children think through its message. Our answer is WAIT FOR HOME. For other options, see.
