Synopsis

Set in the lush and royal country of Zamunda, newly-crowned King Akeem (Eddie Murphy) and his trusted confidante Semmi (Arsenio Hall) embark on an all-new hilarious adventure that has them traversing the globe from their great African nation to the borough of Queens, New York - where it all began.

Review

Coming To America is one of my favorite films of all time. Though Dreamgirls is my favorite film overall, I think either Coming To America or The Nutty Professor are Eddie’s best overall outings because they completely showcase the talent that is Eddie Murphy. Now, I am not alone in this. Coming To America is one of the most beloved comedy films of all time and is IMMENSELY popular in the black community. I remember when I saw it for the first time, I was 11 or 12 years old, and my mother was shocked that I hadn’t seen the film yet. The film is rated R, and I was not allowed to watch R-rated films for a long time, but my mother still had expected me to have seen Coming To America. That’s how big it is for us. Thus, there was a lot of trepidation surrounding this film. Would it live up to the original? Are they going to ruin Coming To America?

Well, I am here to report that while it, unfortunately, doesn’t live up to the original film, Coming 2 America is everything but a stain on the legacy of the classic 1988 film. Fans of the original film should be pleased with this sequel, as I was, mostly.

Now, 10-years’-plus-delayed sequels don’t have an amazing track record (Dumb and Dumber To, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, etc.) and I think that is the biggest reason why the film fails in the areas it does. We are too removed from the original for all of the magic to still be there. This film is rated PG-13 and the original was rated R (granted, PG-13 didn’t exist when the original film came out, but it still earns its R-rating), so this film doesn’t have the same edginess that the original had. This film spends most of it’s time in Zamunda, so the roughness of New York is not on display here, which was part of why the other film works so well. Even outside of that, this sequel is just not as funny as the original. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty funny. I laughed audibly several times, but the first film was so funny and so great, it’s just hard to replicate that. More jokes fell flat than I would have liked.

What saves this film, though, is its new cast of characters and PURE NOSTALGIA. Every single character (with the exception of Eriq La Salle and the late Madge Sinclair) returns in this film. It was se great to just sit with and experience those characters again. The Barbershop Guys, Saul, Clarence, and Morris, Randy Watson and Sexual Chocolate (my absolute favorite character from the original), Reverend Brown, Akeem, Lisa, Semmi, King Jaffe Joffer, Mr. McDowell, the white guy that Louie Anderson plays. EVERYBODY is back and it is worth it to watch for these characters alone. When I saw a rough cut of this film back in September in a theater, it was so great to discover with an audience the people that were going to show up next. Randy Watson got this biggest round of applause. But, the new characters played by Jermain Fowler, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, Wesley Snipes, Kiki Layne, and more are great, too. Wesley Snipes’ General Izzi is quite the scene-stealer as well. With this and Dolemite is My Name, Wesley Snipes has re-proven himself quite the comedian. I also love Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan’s energy together. That’s another thing. Everyone in this film looks like they are enjoying themselves. Watching the actors have fun makes you, the viewer, have fun as well, and I think that’s just excellent.

Also, on a technical level, the film is very successful. The costumes from Ruth E. Carter are STUNNING as always. She won an Oscar for Black Panther for a reason. She should have won for Dolemite is My Name, but she wasn’t even nominated. UGH, anyways... Everyone looks amazing in this film. No one looks a day over 40 unless they’re supposed to. The sets and location a beautiful as well. I heard that, even though they did reshoots at Tyler Perry Studios here in Atlanta, most of the palace scenes were filmed at Rick Ross’ mansion. That’s hilarious to me. 

Overall, I feel the film is successful. It had excellent source material, so I think that based on nostalgia alone, this film succeeds. But, it adds in more and new things and characters which I really enjoyed. It is not as good as the first one, but really, what is? It was so great to see all these characters on screen again for the first time in 33 years and I think many people will agree with me in that regard.