I have to mention that the original Coming to America is my all-time favorite comedy, so I wasn’t expecting much from Coming 2 America. My expectations were meager because I just knew in my heart there was no way this could come close at all to how good the first was, and sure enough, I was right.
Now that’s not saying this is a terrible film or anything like that. It was merely an okay film. I wasn’t disappointed because I knew it wouldn’t be great. This felt more like a remake than a sequel at times.
Set 30 years after the first film’s events, we follow former Prince Akeem Joffer, who is set to become King of Zamunda. When he discovers he has a son, a street-savvy Queens’ native named Lavelle, he never knew about in America. Honoring his royal father’s dying wish to groom this son as the crown prince, Akeem and Semmi set off to America once again.
I wanted to like this film a lot and surprise myself, but sadly I didn’t. There aren’t many positive things I have to say about this film, but I’ll start by saying that while we didn’t get much New York, about 15 minutes to be precise, they thankfully did a great job at making Zamunda look beautiful. The film mainly takes place there, and thanks to some solid CGI, fantastic production design, and awards-worthy costumes, it came to life on screen. Hats off to Oscar-winner Ruth E. Carter, similar to the great job she did at bringing Wakanda to life through her African royalty costumes in Black Panther, she delivers again here. The outfits in this film are beautiful and so stylish. Her work is worthy of an Oscar nomination.
I’ll say this on the acting front Wesley Snipes gave the best performance in the film like in Eddie’s previous collaboration, Dolemite is My Name. He steals every scene and shows fantastic comedic timing. Eddie was initially set to play the role, and I’m glad he didn’t. While Eddie would have done a great job, Wesley just brought something to it that Eddie wouldn’t. His character is constantly dancing with about four scenes that call for him to bust a move and deliver.
One of my favorite aspects of the film was how they managed to bring back many people from the original. There are some surprises that we don’t see in the trailer that genuinely made me smile. Sadly, for most of the ones we did see in the trailer, the trailer showed pretty much all of their material. That did bother me a bit despite how good it was to see them, especially the barbershop guys who have to be like 100 years old. That barbershop scene was one of the funnier parts of the film.
The film also has many cameos. Some worked well and I was shocked that they pulled it off, while others just felt more like head-scratchers. I found myself asking why? or really? To others.
Now transitioning to my dislikes, the film sadly isn’t that funny. I smiled and chuckled a few times, but there wasn’t a single laugh-out-loud moment. Even the weakest jokes from the original are more amusing than anything here. This felt like a retread of the first film but with a modern setting to try giving it a timely vibe, especially with some of the plans the film tried pushing. The film had many callbacks to the original, with many lines being a word for word copies but just not hitting on the same level. The original was Rated R while this was PG-13, and that hurt the film a lot. This felt very neutered. Some certain scenes and lines could have delivered had they been allowed to go that extra touch of raw.
It’s crazy to think this was co-written by original writers David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein. It is like they forgot everything that made the original work so well. The culprit of why the script failed might lie with Kenya Barris. I like some of his stuff but not Black-ish, which this sometimes felt, especially with the social commentary. The script was very predictable with no surprises, so much of what happened. I spotted them long before they happened. Also, the way the film explained Akeem’s bastard child made me roll my eyes. For some reason, the film has so much product placement, and whoever’s Ides was just wow because it so cringed.
Eddie Murphy hasn’t aged one bit, almost looking precisely the same as he did 33 years ago. He was fine in this. His work here felt even more restrained than it did in the first part. The issue with his performance doesn’t lie in what he did but more because he took a backseat in this film as he would go missing for many scenes.
Eddie’s lack meant more Jermaine Fowler, who plays his son and is the film’s natural leader. I’ve seen him be funny in a lot of other stuff, but he didn’t work for me in this film. He tried too hard to fill Eddie’s shoes, and it just didn’t work. He failed royally. He didn’t have that charisma and charm that Eddie’s Akeem had in the first film. I will say I did love his character because of his chemistry with Nomzamo Mbatha, who played Zamuda’s barber. I loved their scenes together because they had great chemistry.
One of the most significant negatives that game with Fowler’s character was his mother, played by Leslie Jones. I’ve never been a fan of hers and didn’t like her run on SNL at all. Her comedy brand has never worked for me, and this film put all the things I dislike about her style in the forefront, which is how loud, annoying and obnoxious she can be. She dragged the movie down a lot anytime she was on screen.
It’s also very disappointing what they did with Arsenio Hall, who I haven’t seen in anything in a long time. While his Semi was such a crucial part of the original, here, he comes off like an afterthought. Besides being a connection to the original, there is almost no reason for him to return.
It was great to see Shari Headley, John Amos, James Earl Jones, among others, come back, but they weren’t given much to do similar to Arsenio Hall.
It’s hard to believe this film was directed by the talented Craig Brewer, who just led Eddie in his comeback performance in Dolemite is My Name. All the energy and skills he showed in that film weren’t here at all. He didn’t come close to John Landis’ great directing in the original.
My biggest issue with the film would have to be the pacing. The pacing is so off in this film, the film runs 108 minutes, but it felt more like it was over 2 hours. At one point, I stopped the movie to check how much time I had left because I thought I had maybe 10 minutes left, only for it to turned out I had about 30 more minutes, and I just shook my head. While running 9 minutes longer, the original felt shorter, as that had better pacing and editing.
Overall, while this is far from a terrible film, it ultimately came off like an unnecessary sequel that Coming 2 America should have never been made. I doubt I’ll ever watch it again. I’d rather stick to rewatching the original as I have been for the majority of my life.
