There was a time, children, when Eddie Murphy could open a movie without talking out of his animated ass.

These days, the only queues forming when his name is on the marquee are of disgruntled punters wanting their money back. He even managed to tarnish his Oscar nomination for Dreamgirls with three Razzies for the lamentable Norbit.

Meet Dave’s paltry US opening of under $6m from a budget of $100m shows that the former megastar’s slide which began over a decade ago with The Adventures of Pluto Nash continues apace.

It was brave of Murphy to have another crack at family-skewed sci-fi comedy after that particular disaster, but one suspects that Meet Dave’s UK release has been timed to mop up the crowds who couldn’t get into Wall.E.

In a dual role requiring much facial and physical mugging, Murphy plays the eponymous man-shaped spaceship and the alien commander in whose image it is made.

The Lilliputian crew land in New York to retrieve a small meteorite which was supposed to suck up all the salt from Earth’s oceans, thus providing an energy source for their own dying planet.

Unfortunately it landed in the bedroom of mop-topped pipsqueak Josh (Austyn Myers), whose dad is dead but whose mum Gina (Banks) is yum.

Extracting all knowledge of humanity from Google and a single episode of 70s show Fantasy Island, the crew hit the streets as Dave Ming Chang, an uncoordinated freak in a dodgy white suit.

Almost immediately, Dave is run over by Gina. The mission is practically over. Well done, everyone.

Er, not quite. There’s a spanner in the works in the form of the captain’s insubordinate second-in-command (Ed Helms), a time-wasting subplot involving Scott Caan as the cop on Dave’s case and at least an hour’s worth of life lessons, toilet humour and middling special effects to get through before anyone can go home.

Aimed at primary schoolers, Meet Dave trots out the usual messages about love and kindness but has a curiously thumbs-up attitude to befriending weirdos, stereotyping gay people and cramming food without chewing.

Mums won’t be too impressed then, but at least dads have Gabrielle Union to gaze upon as the Captain’s dishy Number Three.

Stealing heavily from Crocodile Dundee and Men In Black, the second collaboration between Murphy and director Robbins has neither the charm of the former nor – despite its sizable budget – the visual pizzazz of the latter.

But while meeting Dave won’t change your life, it’s infinitely preferable to revisiting Norbit.

Elliott Noble