Imagine That

When they sat down to imagine Imagine That, they might also have liked to imagine a killer promotional campaign to go along with the movie. Indeed, a wayward grasp of demographics has counted against the film at the US box-office, where packaging and precedent go a long way. A Nickelodeon production, the film has far broader, grown-up comic appeal than that imprint’s involvement might suggest.
 The promotional materials haven’t help to clarify matters. It’s an Eddie Murphy film, but not as we know it; the marketing erroneously implies This Is One of His More Serious Roles when, in fact, the tone is classic Murphy.
 Forget Norbit and the dress-up buffoonery. The actor’s career highlights have invariably entailed the juggling of pathos and physical timing. Imagine That brings us right back to the high concept era of Trading Places and Coming to America, a time when Eddie Murphy clowned in smaller movements than one perhaps remembers. There is, for example, a genius nanosecond in Ms. Kirkpatrick’s movie; Murphy’s workaholic execu-dad, encumbered with the care of his estranged, eccentric daughter, winds up on a tube slide in a kiddie gym. Jim Carey or Adam Sandler would have aped at the camera and overplayed it. But not Murphy, who passes by, back straightened in mock dignity, and momentarily flashes one of his extraordinary grins.
 We have, of course, seen a million variations of this theme before. Murphy, a high-flyer, is locked in corporate combat with Thomas Haden Church’s hilarious faux-Injun boardroom philosopher, when he discovers that his daughter’s unseen imaginary friends have an extraordinary insight into stock trading. As ever, there comes a point when he must decide between insider information and the affections of the little girl (played with uncannily beautiful timing by Yara Shahidi).
Still, Hollywood family have rarely been so affectingly packaged as they are here; the screenplay is crisp and true, saccharine is entirely absent and Messrs Murphy and Church provide a master class in comic timing.