Coming 2 America Review

Photo Credit - Paramount Pictures

October 1988. Ellis Isle Cinema 4 in Theater #2 to the right. After praying God would guide my mom to the box office whenever we were near a movie theater the whole summer, seven-year-old me finally saw Coming to America in the twilight of its 4-month long theatrical run. That rainy but glorious day, I joined the legions of fans who wanted more.

After thirty-two years of begging in varying forms, Eddie Murphy and Co. brought back Akeem, Semi, and the other beloved characters from Zamunda and Queens for the sequel, Coming 2 America. Aged to match the gap between films, Coming 2 America takes us to present-day Zamunda, where Akeem and Lisa live happily ever after as royals. However, that’s short-lived with the discovery of a long-lost son and the imminent threat on Akeem’s life and Zamunda from the ruler of a neighboring country.

Sounds good, but the question remains - Is Coming 2 America the sequel we needed or should the Joffer Dynasty have continued its cultural reign with only the seminal film?

Coming 2 America boasts big names on-camera, but it yields uneven results. There’s good chemistry among the cast, but a nagging disparity between the standouts and less impressive group members stifles things.

The first film epitomizes what endeared Murphy to the world – his chameleon-like ability to seamlessly morph into multiple people and be extraordinarily funny doing it. Coming 2 America is no different. Murphy again thrives in playing the supporting characters who made the first film memorable, but his work as Akeem is equally as impressive this time. Murphy plays Akeem’s more challenging situations with the same pleasantly surprising level of depth he showed in Dreamgirls and Mr. Church.

The unevenness lies with Jermaine Fowler and Leslie Jones, who play Akeem’s son Lavelle and Mary, Lavelle’s mother, respectively. Both Fowler and Jones are naturally charismatic, yet there wasn’t a trace of it in their performances. Neither ever find a rhythm and both have the spark of Wednesday Addams for most of their scenes.

Beyond that, Wesley Snipes and Tracy Morgan provide their share of laughs in limited screen time. The cameos are also impressive but don’t add much.

Laziness prevails behind the camera for Coming 2 America. It’s not for lack of trying on director Craig Brewer’s part. Similar to the approach he took with his previous Murphy collaboration, Dolemite Is My Name, Brewer gave the comedian-filled cast the space to be as funny as possible. The approach was ineffective this time because the material given to him and the actors wasn’t any good.

Despite its promising premise, the return to Zamunda goes south solely due to a heartbreakingly lousy script from Kenya Barris and the previous film’s writers Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield. They deprive the film of everything that made the original special.

Chief among the writers’ transgressions is the number of jokes that fall flat. Expecting to get as many laughs as the first film produced is a tall order, but no movie with Murphy, Hall, Snipes, Morgan, and Fowler at its disposal should miss on 90% of its jokes. The fact that there’s a Flowbee joke should signal how dated the material is and the Baba character is worse than that.

The other glitch in the script is its deviation from the premise to become a half-baked retread of the original film. The first half of the film moves along smoothly despite the jokes and punchlines that found their way out of an HBO One Night Stand special from 1987. Shortly after that, Coming 2 America looks a lot like Coming to America.

While they included a good amount of nostalgia to connect the films and modernized the story a bit by creating a perfect gender equality subplot, it’s not enough to make a script Brewer could have used to produce a much better product.

A return to Coming to America should feel like the greatest homecoming in the world. The film has made us laugh for over 30 years and represents a seldom seen Black fairy tale. It was also rich in African culture so Sally Struthers convincing us we could feed a child for 35 cents a day would not be our lasting impression of the continent and its people.

Instead, Coming 2 America feels like a high school reunion where everyone peaked in high school and didn’t progress at all. The laughs are far and few between despite the additions of talents like Snipes, Fowler, Morgan, and Brewer to the returning cast and characters. There are some heartfelt moments in the film, but nothing remotely touching the magic we shared 32 years ago. This one is an easy pass