A reunion, not a movie

Coming To America is my favourite comedy so I was thrilled to see the original cast reunite, Shari Headley is still hot at 55, plus it was great to see Morgan, Tracy and Wesley join the team.

But as a movie this flops hard. The whole film is on steroids and peppered with music videos, the few moments that it actually slows down and two characters talk are a breath of fresh air - and these are good actors who can handle drama. The scenes between Akeem’s bastard son and his maid are quite sweet, but just when you start to like them it cuts to another crazed sequence.

The first film worked because it was anchored by a classic Pygmalion storyline with lots of class comedy and farce, you fell in love with the characters and their relationships, and then they let Murphy and Hall off the leash to add their comedy genius. This, by contrast, felt like an early pitch meeting with everyone and their dog throwing in ideas, so multiple story threads start but never have time to really cook.

Also, Murphy is kinda off, the choice to make him a patriarchal stick in the mud like his dad made some sense, but it means he loses the naivety, good nature and quiet wisdom that made Akeem so likeable. Also, grow your Afro a bit dude, the borderline skin-head is Murphy, not Akeem. Plus they make James Earl Jones kind of an asshole, when he was always likeable in the first film, if a little too Conservative (but he came around in the end), he seems to have taken ten steps back here, and his fate was handled awkwardly and insensitively.

Worst of all, there seemed to be a significant injection of woke. Not enough to kill it stone dead (as with Bill & Ted Face The Music) but do we really need three daughters who can whoop Wesley Snipes’ ass with their ninja skills? The first film had some welcome progressivism with Akeem abandoning an arranged marriage to find real love, so I can go along with the ‘female heir’ ideas here, but the politics and finger wagging at ‘sexist’ characters was laid on too thick, meanwhile the film was neutered of the nudity and F-bombs that added some edge and cynicism to the original.

I’d be interested to hear what the original director Ryan Coogler had in mind before Murphy threw it out. I know he conflicted with Landis on the first film but they made absolute gold together. It seems Murphy needs a good director and not too much creative control, because this film reeks of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

They just needed to calm the fuck down, pick a simple storyline, and give us some quality time with the characters we love.