Coming 2 America (2021)

(Amazon Streaming, June 2022) As someone who only moderately liked the original Coming to America, I’m not the target audience for a sequel. But Coming to America does have quite a following, and you can see follow-up Coming 2 America realigns itself to please that audience. Numerous call-backs and fannish references often grind the film to a crawl and don’t shore up the film’s shoddy plot foundations. But this is not a film made to be nitpicked – it’s pure fun for fans of the original, a sure vehicle for Eddie Murphy and something made to shore up Amazon Prime’s original offerings. As with the first film, this one is a black movie directed by a white director – but Craig Brewer’s filmography is far more black-themed than John Landis and –more importantly– he previously collaborated with Murphy on Dolemite is My Name, earning the actor some of his most positive reviews. Here, Murphy is back in full comedian mode in reprising his royal character. A shame, then, that the film is built on such a shaky excuse for a plot: as a royal succession plot taking place in the 2020s, there’s an obvious narrative dead-end in how “my daughter can’t become the king” – we know that’s going to be taken care of before the end. But watching Coming 2 America for plot is useless – it’s specifically made for the comic riffs, the musical moments and watching Murphy re-embrace a comic persona. If the plot is a ramshackle sequence of episodes, so what? Sure, it’s weird that the film ends up taking place largely in Africa aside from a few quick jaunts back to New York City, but so what – at least we’ve got a hilariously well-timed death sequence featuring James Earl Jones, a cover of “What a Man,” various good interludes and a good soundtrack. While Coming 2 America is far more markedly a mercenary product with contrived set-pieces and more than a few nonsensical tangents, I’m not that disappointed – it delivers entertainment, gets its actors a few chuckles and generally has enough going on to keep things interesting. But then again – this film wasn’t made for me, and that’s all right.