Eddie Murphy plays Evan, a dad-in-absentia to grade-schooler Olivia. He's a wildly successful financial consultant locked in a duel-to-the-death competition with mumbo-jumbo pseudo-native finance mystic Johnny Whitefeather as successor to the firm's founder. He's got a head for business, and not much else—particularly parenting.

Olivia's got her own problems. With the aid of her "Goo Gaa," a treasured satin-edged baby blanket (very much like one my wife owns!), Olivia entertains a very vivid fantasy life with a bevy of princesses and their queen. When Evan takes Olivia to work with him one day—because she tends to over-stress out at school—Evan and Olivia both discover that the princesses, uh, have a talent for inexplicable insight that mightily resembles insider trading.

This, naturally, puts Evan on the fast track to replace Whitefeather as the Finance Mystic Du Jour—and puts the film on the fast track to laughs aplenty. Evan's board-room meltdown as he takes his client on a tour through Koopida's and Moppida's financial notes is one of the funniest things Murphy has done on film in years; and the imaginary princess-wooing that ensues (when K's and M's seeming nonsense proves prophetic) is simultaneously sweet, endearing, and gently masterful. Murphy's not mugging here. He's actually playing a real person who, because of circumstances, engages in amusing behavior.

Thematically, the film strikes solid ground in spite of the fluff. In an opening voiceover behind a montage of Evan at work, Olivia tells us that this is a story about a man who used to be "the King of Somewhere" but lost his crown on "a trip to Nowhere." On the surface, we associate Somewhere with Success, and we can draw the implication that Dad is on a downward career path. But that's not the trip that daughter Olivia is talking about. Ultimately, the film asks: If you were handed the keys to the kingdom, what would you do with them? And the answers that director Karey Kirkpatrick and company come up will pleasantly surprise you.

Jesus often offered his followers—and those who were merely considering going along for the ride—the keys to the kingdom. Some like Nicodemus didn't initially know what to do with the offer and walked away from Christ. Others, like the Samaritan woman at the well, eagerly lapped at the "living water" that Jesus offered. Then there was Zaccheus, who not only turned away from his wrongdoing but went the extra step of repaying those he'd cheated&ellips; and Peter, who not only denied Christ when we was betrayed by Judas (another "follower"!) but later played stupid about Gentiles and salvation.

Why the many different responses? Why don't we all emulate that Samaritan woman and embrace truth with all we've got? Why do some turn away, and why do others seem to follow but then fall flat?

Well, in the first place, it's not completely up to us. God is the real Guy With the Crown, and as King of His Kingdom he uses the Holy Spirit as he will to move us, to convict us wrongdoing and even acknowledge Christ as Lord. As Jesus told Nicodemus, the Spirit is like the wind, invisible and powerful, uncontrollable. All we can do is go with it, or fight against it; but we don't control it. So it's not purely about will power.

Second, as Jesus explained in The Parable of the Sower, a lot of things stand in the way of The Gospel. In some cases, the good news just gets plucked away from us by our enemies, including Satan. Simply put, there are those who just don't want us to come to truth. But the real big bugaboo is what Jesus metaphorically describes as "the cares of the world" that distract us from growing up big and strong to spiritual adulthood.

And this is really where our own free will comes in.

God wants you to have the keys to the kingdom. In fact, he's handing them to you right now. And you've got a choice: invest in the world, or invest in the Kingdom.

Choose wisely. God loves you.

And that's your daily tip from Koopida and Moppida.