Coming 2 America

Lavelle Junson

Before it even begins, Coming 2 America already has five strikes. It integrates a number in its misleading title (most of the action takes place in Zamunda), it arrives three decades after the original, the plot revolves around a son that the protagonist did not know he had, its content has been sanitized to reach a wider public, and its stars are, albeit briefly, digitally de-aged. This means that C2A has at least one thing in common with 2 Fast 2 Furious, The Odd Couple II, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Expendables 3, and The Irishman. This is not good company. We learn that Zamunda has a neighboring country called Nextdoria. This name perfectly illustrates the creative bankruptcy of director Craig Brewer (though any filmmaker is better than notorious infanticide John Landis, who directed the original) and screenwriters Kenya Barris, Barry W. Blaustein, and David Sheffield. It baffles the mind that it took three people to write a film in which what passes for humor is, for example, Akeem (Eddie Murohy) constantly and cheerfully calling his son a “bastard.” Swearing is not funny in and of itself; it requires context. In Coming to America, it was funny when Akeem used, unaware of its meaning, foul language because, ironically, he intended to be polite; it’s quite a stretch, however, for him to be oblivious of the offensive connotation of the word ‘bastard.’ And speaking of offensive connotations, another source of quote-unquote comedy is the cultural clash between the refined royals of Zamunda and Lavelle’s (Akeem’s illegitimate son) uncouth family; Lavelle’s mother Mary and Uncle Reem are played respectively by Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan, so you can be sure there is no shortage of stereotypical African-American behavior. C2A is not entirely devoid of pleasures, but these are few and far between. For instance, there's an appearance by En Vogue and Salt-N-Pepa performing their 1993 hit “Whatta Man” with reworked lyrics – but the best thing about the movie is by far Wesley Snipes's performance as General Izzi (older brother of Imani, Akeem's original fiancée). Snipes easily steals every scene he’s in, even outshining Murphy and Hall. The rest is pure nostalgia, and the movie is indeed firmly rooted in the values of the 80s. There is a nod to gender equality when Akeem changes the tradition of royal succession to allow his eldest daughter to rule Zamunda upon his death; he conveniently forgets, on the other hand, to abolish that other tradition, dating back to the original film, according to which kings and princes are bathed by attractive young women who, as we remember from Coming to America, had to be sexually subservient (not to mention that poor Imani is still hopping in one leg and barking like a dog as Akeem cruelly ordered her to decades ago).