Review: Coming 2 America (2021)

Craig Brewer’s Coming 2 America, the long-awaited sequel to Eddie Murphy’s 1988 comedy hit, is the latest legacy sequel or “diegetic reboot” to come out in recent years. By this I mean that the film is as much a reboot as a sequel to its predecessor, released several decades ago. While Coming 2 America takes place after the original film within the same cinematic chronology, it remixes familiar story beats from that film with new characters in order to appeal to both fans and new viewers simultaneously, similar to how Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) remixes the original Star Wars (1977). It seems an approach born out of economic necessity as much as artistic intent for sequels coming decades after their predecessors. 

However, while the plot approach is very indicative of contemporary Hollywood, the comedy of Coming 2 America is very much a throwback to the 1980s. It’s full of jokes about racial stereotypes, edgy sexual humour, and culture clashes that don’t jive with modern political correctness. The result is a film that is both lazy on a storytelling level but genuinely funny, which is rather fitting for the sequel to the funny, but blandly-structured and shot original film.

Picking up 30 years after Coming to America, Coming 2 America takes Prince Akeem of Zamunda (Eddie Murphy) back to Queens to find the son he didn’t know he had. His son, Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), is an ordinary dude hustling as a ticket scalper, so it’s a shock when Akeem shows up and tells him he’s the heir to Zamunda and whisks him back to the idyllic African nation. Where the original film had Akeem play the fish-out-of-water, this film has Lavelle in that role as the ordinary American dude struggling to adjust to life as a prince in a foreign nation. The set-up of the original film allowed Eddie Murphy to poke fun at African American culture, but the new film flips the script with Murphy ribbing pan-African culture, specifically its perceived politeness, archaic traditions, and emotional reserve. Murphy trades on stereotypes of Nigerians and Kenyans, specifically, while also playing with stereotypes of African warlords through Wesley Snipes’ hilarious political rival, General Izzi of Nexdoria.

Luckily, Murphy is probably one of the only comedians able to pull off the jesting approach. The film mocks the ridiculousness of every culture it touches, but also seems to have genuine affection for the characters and the rituals on display. For every bit about the eccentricity of African generals—there’s a throwaway gag involving Nexdorian soldiers with shake-weights that is very funny—there’s also a celebration of the bright designs and proud heritage of this fictionalized Africa. Ruth E. Carter, who won an Oscar designing the costumes for Black Panther, does the costumes here and each new scene is an opportunity for show stopping formal dress that belongs more on a fashion runway (or in the Star Wars prequels) than a comedy film. The pageantry on display makes the film something of an endless party.

The actual party scenes help with this vibe too. There’s some plot mechanics here involving threats from Nexdoria and Lavelle’s tentative romance with his commoner hairdresser, but most of the film is a hangout, with Brewer, Murphy, and their team of writers, Kenya Barris, Barry W. Blaustein, and David Sheffield, trotting out cameos from the original film as well as appearances from SNL alumni such as Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan as Lavelle’s mother and uncle, respectively. Many scenes are literal parties or dances, such as a funeral party for James Earl Jones’s King Jaffe or the expressive arrival of the Nexdorians in the Zamundan court. These scenes have plenty of music and characters showing their moves and throwing one-liners at the antics on display. The film even ends in an 1980s throwback where a band gets on stage and characters rock out in the audience; it’s the kind of comedy ending that was common in the 1980s but is exceedingly rare in contemporary comedies.

There are also risque jokes that throw back to Murphy’s boundary-pushing humour from the 1980s that’s present in Coming to America, but even more so in his standup films, Delirious (1983) and Raw (1987). Similar to last year’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Coming 2 America is occasionally thrilling for the boldness of its comedy that seems almost entirely absent from contemporary mainstream comedy. The scenes in the famous barbershop from the original (with Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, and Clint Smith reprising their prosthetic-heavy roles as the barbers) have plenty of ribald jokes about Nazis, sexual fluidity, and the shortcomings of modern generations. The plot also has a blasé handling of what could be construed as Akeem being date-rapped off camera in the first film. Not every joke of this kind works, but there are enough jokes both of Murphy’s boundary-pushing variety and the more gentle ribbing of cultures to make the hit-to-miss ratio fall on the positive side.

All of this makes Coming 2 America a successful comedy with a lazy, pleasant vibe. Now, the less said about the filmmaking, the better. Like its predecessor, it has a pedestrian approach to the formal elements of filmmaking. But while Coming to America at least has the luck to be shot on 35mm, Coming 2 America showcases a hideous digital sheen that is indicative of many films shot for streaming (it was released primarily on Amazon Prime). It has washed-out lighting, flat blocking, and an off-putting 2.00:1 aspect ratio. In general, whenever there aren’t bright costumes on screen, it’s visually ugly, which is a disappointment from Craig Brewer, who showed formal chops in Hustle & Flow (2005).

Which is to say that you do not watch Coming 2 America to watch a dazzling work of art. You watch it for Eddie Murphy at his most genial, for the continuation of Murphy’s mini-renaissance that started with Dolemite Is My Name (2019), also by Brewer, and for the consistent humour that is daring enough to make you laugh. It’s a bit derivative and yet another bit of nostalgic content in our current glut of reboots, sequels, and adaptations, but you can’t argue with a good belly laugh in these dire times.

6 out of 10

Coming 2 America (2021, USA)

Directed by Craig Brewer; written by Kenya Barris, Barry W. Blaustein, and David Sheffield, based on a story by Barry W. Blaustein, David Sheffield, and Justin Kanew, based on characters created by Eddie Murphy; starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, KiKi Layne, Shari Headley, Teyana Taylor, Wesley Snipes, and James Earl Jones.

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