Imagine That

Why make a kiddie movie about investment banking? Especially when it suggests that the perpetrators of the credit crunch were spending too little – not too much – time listening to their seven year olds. That’s exactly what Denver exec Eddie Murphy does in this dreadfully flat family comedy, since the financial advice of his daughter (Yara Shahidi, a natural) and her imaginary friends rather spookily outdoes his own market soothsaying. Needless to say, he becomes reliant on her suggestions, with consequences that leave yawning gaps between anything even vaguely resembling a half-smile, as the plot grinds its way towards some chastening lessons for workaholic daddy.

Murphy at least tries to stay in character rather than overdoing the silly voices and physical knockabout, but maybe the material was so blah that he felt it wasn’t worth the effort. So there you have it, a movie in which the innocence of a child helps her parent become a better capitalist, all to the strains of sundry Beatles covers. Does one detect just the teeniest hint of cynicism?