By Geno McGahee
In 1988, a classic was born with COMING TO AMERICA, a film created and starring Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. It was a fish out of water story, with an African prince coming to the United States and encountering all sorts of strange personalities. It’s a film that had an innocence and humor. It was a good film that did not get old. Now, all these years later we get COMING 2 AMERICA, an unfunny man-hating film that seemed more intent on proving a point then making the audience laugh.
Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) becomes King Akeem when his dad, Jaffe (James Earl Jones), dies. He has three daughters, leaving no heir to the throne, but he discovers that he has a son in the states. He was drugged by Mary, played by Leslie Jones and I cannot stand anything that she is in and this is no different. She has one character and one speed and here it is. The obnoxious and intrusive character is back. On top of that, the fact that she drugged Akeem to get sex out of him changes a lot of things. It’s impossible to connect the original to this idea, but they had to come up with a way that he could have a son in the states.
Akeem’s son, Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), wants to do good things in the world, but he is pretty poor and when he goes for a job, a racist boss interviews him. Scene by scene, this film takes aim at social situations and wants to push their thoughts on the viewers rather than entertain them. Even at the barber shop, the usually very funny characters from the first, are painfully unfunny. Akeem brings up how women have been touched against their will in the past as the #metoo movement is basically brought up. Who are they trying to convince? I don’t think many are for abusing anyone but this film wants to shove it down your throat. I don’t think Harvey Weinstein watched the scene and had a moment of clarity.
Both Lavelle and his rapist mother are brought to Zamunda to live like royalty, which upsets the three daughters of Akeem. They want a queen to take over Zamunda when Akeem passes, but the law says a man has to do it…so it’s Lavelle and he’s going to marry the daughter of another country’s leader, General Izzi, played by Wesley Snipes. Snipes is awesome, always, but he’s got nothing to work with here. He tries and I give credit to him for trying, but it’s a lost cause. When Lavelle is introduced to Izzi’s daughter, it’s painful. It seems like they are trying to connect to the younger generation but it doesn’t make much sense.
COMING 2 AMERICA is shit. The entire message of the film is that men are evil and that there is a built in hatred of women. With all the talent they had in this film, they decided to make a woke moment out of it and pat themselves on the backs, showing how not racist, not sexist, not close-minded they are. It’s pathetic. There is a time and place for everything and Hollywood is ruining films to appease those that would complain and protest if they didn’t make social statements.
I hated this film. I don’t often hate films. I absolutely hated it and it’s not just because they shoved constant messages down the throats of the viewer. It’s because they whored out a classic and shat on it while they were at it. I love the original COMING TO AMERICA and waited for this with much anticipation and it was the most unfunny reprimanding film I’ve seen in some time. I think they could have saved a lot of money if they just had Murphy sit in front of the camera, looking at the viewer, and saying “if you are a man watching this, shame on you.”
One final comment. Eddie Murphy’s performance was shit in this. He phoned it in and looked bored throughout. This film was made by committee with too many cooks in the kitchen. There’s not one good thing to take away from it.
