Coming 2 America

 

When I first heard they were making a sequel to Coming to America, I was both intrigued and had some trepidation. Comedy sequels are notoriously hard to pull off and far more turn out to be bad then good. I have to say that I was relieved to discover that Coming 2 America is a solidly entertaining follow-up. 

Prince Akeem (played by Eddie Murphy) has been living happily in Zamunda for the past 30 years with his wife Lisa (played by Shari Headley) and his daughters Meeka (played by Kiki Layne), Omma (played by Bella Murphy), and Tinashe (played by Akiley Love). However, his father King Jaffee (played by James Earl Jones) is ailing and informs his that according to Zamunda tradition, he must have a male heir to inherit the throne after him. It turns out that he is revealed he did indeed sire a son during his first trip to America. In an amusing bit of retconning, It turns out that on their first night in there, Semmi (played by Arsenio Hall) picked up a couple of ladies to take back to their apartment. Akeem wound up spending the night with one of the ladies, Mary (played by Leslie Jones). The reason he did not remember the encounter was they partook in some of Mary's "ceremonial herb" that night. Seeing no other choice, Akeem and Semmi travel back to America to find his son. He is quickly able to locate him thanks to their old friends in the local barbershop (once again played by Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall). Akeem soon finds his son, Lavelle (played by Jermaine Fowler), outside Madison Square Garden working as a ticket scalper. After an awkward reunion with Mary, soon Lavelle, Mary and Lavelle's uncle Reem (played by Tracey Morgan) are flying back to Zamunda. However, Lavelle's arrival in Zamunda raises certain tensions not only with Akeem's own family, but with General Izzi (played by Wesley Snipes), the leader of the neighboring county, Nextdori (get it?). General Izzi proposes a union between the two nations, with Izzi's daughter Bopoto (played by Teyana Taylor) marrying Lavelle, which Lavelle agrees to. However, upon meeting and getting to know the Royal Groomer Mirembe (played by Nomzamo Mbatha), he begins to regret that decision as he starts falling for her.   

The film was directed by Craig Brewer from a script by Kenya Barris, Barry Blaustein, and David Sheffield. The result is a reasonably amusing follow-up to the original film. The filmmakers do a good job re-capturing the spirit of the original film remarkably well while marking the passage of time. There are some callbacks to the more memorable parts of the original film, such as the aforementioned revisit to the barbershop in Queens or the Zamunda Royal Bathing traditions (which actually gets two callbacks!). I appreciated for this film they flipped the script a bit with very little time actually being spent in America and much of the film focusing on Akeem getting to know his son, as well as his son adapting to life in Zamunda. Plenty of humor is derived from Lavelle discovering he has to pass certain trials in order to officially become a Zamunda Prince, including retrieving a whisker from a napping lion, that has his understandably nervous. I also appreciated that they didn't have Lisa and Mary butting heads the whole movie, but rather actually bond and become friends. I also have to give a special shout-out to Ruth Carter for the absolutely gorgeous costume work in this film. While the first film had it's share of beautiful costumes, this film really turns it up to eleven. 

The film does reunites pretty much the entire cast of the original film with a few exceptions. Eddie Murphy more or less picks up where he left off with Prince Akeem, capturing the character's same warmth, while also bringing him up to date adding age and some wisdom to the character. Arsenio Hall also manages to recapture the role of Semmi quite well after all these years. And of course Murphy and Hall once again play multiple roles in the film, impressively recapturing each one from the guys in the Barbershop onward. I watched these two films more or less back to back and it really is pretty seamless, only with more gray hairs. Arsenio Hall also briefly appears as Semmi's father and is quite amusing in that role as well. It's nice to get to see how well Lisa has taken to life as a Princess since the original film ended with their wedding and Shari Headley captures her character's growth and now ease in the role quite well. She also has great chemistry with Leslie Jones as the two bond and become fast friends, being two gals from the same neighborhood. Speaking of which, Leslie Jones manages to steal every scene she's in with a hilarious performance. Then again I am a Leslie Jones fan, so one's mileage may vary. Jermaine Fowler does well as Lavelle, even as his plot begins to veer into a bit of a rehash of the original film he handles it well and has decent romantic chemistry with Nomzamo Mbatha as well. Likewise, Mbatha does well in her role as well as her burgeoning romance with Lavelle grows over the second half of the movie. Wesley Snipes has an amusing supporting role as General Izzi, doing everything but literally chewing the scenery and honestly may be one of the best parts of the movie. The film also has a few very fun cameos throughout it's runtime that I would definitely hate to spoil.

Overall, Coming 2 America is a worthy follow-up to the classic original film. The filmmakers did a good job recapturing the spirit of the original film. Is it as good as the original film? No, of course not. Sequels rarely are. But this new film is a still a lot of fun and made with a lot of care and heart. It's a lot of fun to watch, even as it rehashes certain plot points and gags. Yes, at a certain point is was clearly obvious where the movie was going but the funny this is I didn't care.