Introduction:

In a New York City apartment a young boy named Josh Morrison (Austin Lynd Myers) watches through his telescope an approaching object coming from the sky. It is a golf ball-sized metal ball which flies through the window of his room and lands in his fishbowl, quickly draining the water. He keeps it and shows it at school in a science class presentation. Some months later, on Liberty Island a massive fireball crash lands. The fireball is actually a spaceship resembling a human (Eddie Murphy). It is controlled by 100 humanoid aliens, each one inch tall. Its captain (also played by Murphy and looking like Dave) pilots the spaceship along with his crew from inside its head. For people the spaceship seems fairly human, but odd and with superpowers. A superstitious cop named Officer Dooley (Scott Caan) is desperately searching for the alien.

The aliens are seeking a way to save their planet, Nil, from an energy crisis. For that they need salt, which they plan to produce by draining the Earth’s oceans using the metal ball, so they have to recover it. Through a car accident in which the spaceship is hit by the car of Josh’s single mother Gina Morrison (Elizabeth Banks), the spaceship befriends Gina and Josh, telling them it’s name is Dave Ming-Chang and sees the ball on a photograph. After having breakfast with Gina, Dave goes to Josh’s school where he pretends to be a substitute teacher, and eventually is able to talk to Josh alone. Josh tells him that the ball was taken from him by a bully. Directed to him by Josh, Dave takes the metal ball back from the bully.