Imagine That

Eddie Murphy's long, slow slide into irrelevance continues in filmmaker Karey Kirkpatrick's Imagine That, an odd and ineffective family film in which Murphy plays a divorced dad whose career as a financial manager has taken precedence over marriage and parenthood. Sharing custody of his seven-year-old daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi) with his ex-wife Tricia (Nicole Ari Parker), Evan (Murphy) only starts spending more time with the little girl after he overhears the prescient stock tips she offers her imaginary friends. Evan pretends to be part of her fantasy world to get those tips, which he passes along to his clients—not a particularly funny premise for a movie. While there's plenty of mugging and some fairly desperate attempts to wring humor from ridiculous situations—one of them being rival Thomas Haden Church posing as a Native American pretending to get his stock tips from Indian spirits—very little here actually provokes laughter. Of course, in the end, Murphy's Wall Street guru learns that family is more important than business, but by that time most viewers will have lost interest. Not recommended. (E. Hulse)