The Adventures of Pluto Nash

Ron Underwood’s The Adventures of Pluto Nash takes a serviceable idea for a comedy and finds surprisingly little to do with it. Eddie Murphy plays a nightclub owner on the Moon, dodging gangsters in surroundings that ought to offer plenty of comic possibilities. The science fiction supplies the scenery while the gangster business supplies the activity, and neither produces enough laughs. It is a poor comedy with an amiable lead and occasional signs that someone was enjoying the possibilities of the setting.

Eddie Murphy remains easy company, which helps more than it should. His Pluto Nash is likeable enough to follow, but Neil Cuthbert’s screenplay gives him too few opportunities to do anything amusing within the business of avoiding criminals. We were bored watching Pluto dodge gangsters, because the pursuit gives Eddie Murphy so little chance to be funny. His performance is restrained to the point where we begin waiting for him to take charge of a scene, rather than simply get through it.

Rosario Dawson brings some welcome directness to Dina Lake, and her presence makes the film easier to sit through. Randy Quaid’s Bruno and the other supporting roles ought to broaden the comedy beyond its leading man, but the ensemble never develops much shared momentum. John Cleese offers a brief diversion as James. There is considerable comic promise in this company, but the script relies too heavily on our pleasure at recognising the people in it.

Bill Brzeski’s production design is the part we would most readily defend, though its conspicuous artificiality will not be to every taste. The lunar surroundings provide something to inspect during the dull patches, and a few visual gags suggest the comedy could have made more use of them. Oliver Wood’s cinematography does not make the setting feel especially strange or inviting. We can accept a future that looks manufactured, but we need a stronger reason to spend time there than the novelty of a nightclub on the Moon.

Paul Hirsch and Alan Heim edit a film that moves between pieces of action without acquiring much comic pace. The scenes get on with their business, but jokes need time to develop, and a brisk departure cannot improve one that has failed. John Powell’s score cannot compensate for the thin comic writing either. At 95 minutes, this is not an excessive commitment on paper, yet long stretches feel like waiting for the cast to be given something worthwhile.

Against the modest demands of a science-fiction gangster spoof, the failure is straightforward. The setting need not be plausible, and the plot need not be new, but the characters must have funny things to say or do. Ron Underwood settles too often for the familiarity of the gangster material, leaving the lunar setting to supply interest by itself. There are patches of energy, and the unpretentious approach is welcome, but too much of Neil Cuthbert’s screenplay seems satisfied with getting its characters through the plot.

Anyone drawn by Eddie Murphy should lower their expectations of how much comedy he gets to supply. There is no compensating pleasure in watching the film go extravagantly wrong: most of it is too ordinary for that. For a night when the point is to laugh, we would choose something else.