“Coming 2 America” skipped theatres and went straight to Amazon Prime this past Friday. The film was acquired by the streamer last fall in a deal that, when everything was said and done, reportedly cost $125 million and also included the transfer of marketing tie-in deals with McDonald’s and whiskey brand, Crown Royal.
Eddie Murphy is back in the role of Akeem, the privileged African prince who settled into Queens to look for an American wife in the 1987 original. Craig Brewer, who just directed Murphy in the hilarious and heartfelt "Dolemite Is My Name,” is at the helm for this sequel, which has Akeem learning about a long lost son, and returning to America to meet his unlikely heir to the throne of Zamunda. Notably, in the original movie, Zamunda was only spoken of, a loony African kingdom that is never shown; now it’s the setting of the film, with New York barely visited.
It turns out that, unsurprisingly, “Coming 2 America” leans heavily on nostalgia, as we see the same band of characters as the first film; Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, John Amos, Paul Bates, Louie Anderson, and Vanessa Bell Calloway are all back. So are the numerous different characters Murphy plays in the now-classic barbershop scene.
The idea of a sequel to the very funny original comes at a risk, and those ambitions, or lack thereof, don’t really pay off. Repetition seeps into this misguided cash grab of a sequel, but so does dullness. This has resulted in very negative reviews from both critics and audiences. A 53 on Metacritic and 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. Its viewer score on IMDB is a tepid 5.5 based on more than 20,000 voters.
Part of the problem might lie in the tame PG-13 rating stamped on this sequel, at least when compared to the wild nature of the R-rated 1988 original. This leads to a desperate attempt at conformist comedy. It feels too safe. When beloved characters of the original show up as Easter eggs they play out more like props than any sort of hilarious entity for the film. Familiarity is the name of the game here with copycat scenes from the original being duplicated here for sloppy seconds giggles. Surprisingly enough, the strongest comedy is delivered by franchise newcomers Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan as Lavelle’s mother and uncle; accompanying him to Zamunda.
Then there’s Eddie Murphy, a shadow of his former vibrant, energetic and youthful self from thirty years ago, going through the same embarrassing comedic motions of “Pluto Nash, and “Norbit.” It’s been happening less and less, but Murphy can still feel invigorated by a role and deliver a memorable performance — it’s happened thrice in the last 20 years (“Dreamgirls,” “Dolemite is My Name” and his genius voicework in “Shrek”). In “Coming 2 America,” Murphy is stiff and devoid of the sharp wit that made his best performances soar.
The most painful disappointment, however, comes in Brewer actually being a good filmmaker, with a keen visual eye, but none of his talents are used here. What drowns Brewer and Murphy is the too-obvious screenplay. Kenya Barris rewrote the script by original “Coming to America” writers Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield.
It all feels less like a movie and more like a nostalgic-driven reunion special.