Eddie Murphy keeps Fox's Rotten Tomatoes streak alive!

According to an age-old Hollywood maxim, it's just as hard to make a bad movie as a good one. If true,  I guess we can't accuse anyone of slacking off at 20th Century Fox. The box-office jury is still out came in with a guilty verdict on "Meet Dave," joining the critics: The sci-fi comedy -- about an alien spaceship that looks like, well, like Eddie Murphy -- is a stinker.

Even Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, the man who rarely sees a movie he can't shamelessly blurb ("Speed Racer": "The movie is a powerhouse!"), turned up his nose at  "Dave," calling it "bottom-feeding material" with "lazyass toilet jokes." (Our review isn't much better.)

Rotten Tomatoes, the leading online aggregator of reviews, gave "Dave" a 21% fresh out of 100. The abysmal score keeps an unenviable Fox streak alive. Putting aside "Horton Hears a Who," which got good notices when it hit the theaters in March, Fox has released 16 movies since "The Simpsons Movie" came out last July. And guess how many of those films got a 50 or better (considered the minimum for an average score at Rotten Tomatoes)?

Zero.

Getting a 50-plus score at Rotten Tomatoes isn't that hard. After all, "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" scored a 55 while "Get Smart" earned a solid 53. But Fox hasn't even been within shouting distance lately, with "The Happening" getting a 19 (ouch!), "What Happens in Vegas" scoring a 27 (yikes) and "Deception" barely cracking double figures with a lowly 11 (whoa Nellie!).

The good news: Fox only has to wait a week before it has a chance to break the streak. The bad news: Its next movie is "Space Chimps," an animated comedy about a pair of NASA chimps who blast off into space to save a distant planet from its evil nemesis. Does that sounds like 50-plus material to you? I'd love to hear from anyone who thinks they can predict "Chimps' " Rotten Tomatoes score. You may want to watch the trailer first--and adjust your scores accordingly:

Photo of Eddie Murphy in "Meet Dave"  by Kerry Hayes / 20th Century Fox

Comments

[David]

I'm game.. I say it hits lower than "Deception" and comes in at a 9 om the tomatoes ranking

[Running]

Even my 9 year old can smell the stink of death from "Space Chimps."

[earnest]

62. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Lost N Perdition]

Whatever direction they are going in, I wish they would stop because they seem to be going down the drain. It seems they take on all the projects that are stupid and childish and get rid of all the projects that have potential like Firefly.

[jay]

actually, on RT movies need a 60% or higher to be fresh

[bobbo]

Alex Young for President. He can't do any worse than he's doing at the studio. And maybe Tom Rothman should give up his TV show.

[rgmax99]

It's so sad to see such a tremendous talent put to waste in this stuff. It's also sad to see that Murphy's next film is from the same director -- his third in a row with Brian Robbins after Norbit.

[kamran yar khan]

i just cannot understand as to why people still believe that eddie murphy is a box office draw? He is finished and should just do cameo roles on tv with respect. I have been following his career since 25 years and he should just fade out respectfully

[GK]

Most of the movie stinkers of the past several years come from Hedge Fund money.

When the hedge funds were awash in cash they turned to Hollywood for mega returns on their investments.

So every script that had been tossed into the circular file was fished out and green lighted with the new cash. The deals were so one sided that even if the movie tanked the producgtion companies made out like bandits.

The only group sleazier than Wall Street is Hollywood.

[RBofLA]

seems to me Fox Movies has the same director as Fox News, Fox Business News and Fox Reality...wait..Oh I almost forgot..FOX SUCKS