Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different movie from the Nerdosphere.  This week Dave and Patrick review the long awaited Eddie Murphy sequel Coming 2 America!

The Flick:  Coming 2 America (2021)

What’s it About:  Prince Akeem returns to America some thirty years after meeting his future wife there. This time Akeem is searching for his long-lost son to bring back to Zamunda and claim his place as the future king.

Metacritic Score: 54

The Nerds’ Take on Coming 2 America (2021):

Patrick:  One interesting byproduct of the Pandemic has been the swath of nostalgia pieces from the 1980s we have gotten on our streaming services.  So far, we’ve gotten new episodes of Cobra Kai.  Dave and I already reviewed one nostalgia fueled sequel in Bill and Ted Face the Music.  Now, we review Coming 2 America, Eddie Murphy’s long anticipated sequel to his popular 80s tale of a similar, but not quite the same name.  I found this sequel to be well worth the wait, although I won’t be surprised if fans of the original are disappointed by the film’s comparatively softer tone and humor.

The movie picks up thirty years after the original.  Prince Akeem is married to his found love Lisa McDowell and a proud father of three daughters.  Akeem appears to have basically been ruling the kingdom in his Father’s name, and things are mostly well outside of a dispute with a neighboring warlord General Izzi, whose sister Akeem rejected in order to find his bride.  On his deathbed Akeem’s father tells him of an illegitimate son Akeem sired after being accidentally drugged at a club.  Since it is Zamunda’s law that only a male can be crowned king, Akeem sets off to America to bring back his heir to train him to be king.

What follows is a reversal of the original Coming to Amercia.  This time the audience witness’s Akeem’s son Lavelle in the fish out of water role Akeem played years before.  The culture clashes lead to humorous and awkward situations as Levelle wrestles with a new culture and the burden of responsibility.  Complicating matters is Lavelle’s insistence that Akeem allow Lavelle’s mother and uncle come along.  All three create laughs trying to fit in with the royal family of Zamunda.  Meanwhile Akeem wrestles with the dynamic of bringing Lavelle into his otherwise happy family.  Akeem unwittingly damages his marriage as well as the relationship between himself and his eldest daughter Kiki, who aspires for the throne.

The story itself is pretty formulaic, it’s easy to see how the film will resolve, but there really is no harm in that.  The film attempts to turn a satirical eye on American culture and race, however while the message is there, I found the biting humor from the original film to be missing in the sequel.  Part of the original’s success was its biting humor and uncompromising take on black neighborhoods, namely Queens.  Although I did crack up at the gentrification joke told early in the film.  The film is funny in its own right, just softer than I expected.  Fans will likely love the number of callbacks Coming 2 America makes to the original.  I was impressed at the sheer volume of cast members from the original movie who appeared.  James Earl Jones in particular looks like he had a blast in his brief appearance.

Speaking of cast, there are plenty of great performances to celebrate, but I am going to cover three.  The movie really begins and ends with two men: Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.  As they did in the original, they play multiple characters throughout the films, both familiar characters fans will love as well as some new ones.  Hall’s turn as the Shaman Baba is particularly good.  I already mentioned him once, but James Earl Jones at 90 plus reprises his role as King Jaffe Joffer and Jones looks like he was having a ball in his brief role.  The man is beaming throughout all of his scenes, but especially during his funeral, which he request be held before he dies.  But the real show stealer for me is Wesley Snipes in the role of General Izzi.  I don’t want to spoil too much, but man does he command attention when he is on the screen.  Everything is done with an over the top exuberance that will leave you in stitches.

Coming 2 America was never going to live up to the lofty bar set by its predecessor.  Coming to America was brilliant and it was always going to be a tough act to follow.  But that doesn’t mean Coming 2 America isn’t good, far from it.  While the humor is far tamer, there are still plenty of laughs to be had.  The writers made sure to include all kinds of throwbacks to the original in the form of cameos and throwback gags.  I found Coming 2 America to be an enjoyable ride.

Patrick’s Rating: 3.83/5.0

Dave: Two weeks ago, we reviewed a sequel some 30 years in the making when we recapped Bill & Ted Face The Music. This week, we review a sequel even longer in the making. Coming 2 America is the long-awaited sequel to 1988’s phenomenal Coming to America. The original was one of the most beloved comedies of the 1980’s and it got a perfect 5/5 from yours truly when it was featured in the Nerds Review way back in July of 2020. Facing the near impossible task of trying to live up to that lineage what I can say is this: Coming 2 America is excellent in its own right.

It has been some 30 years since Prince Akeem wed the love of his life, Lisa, at a magnificent and magical ceremony in Zamunda. The Royal couple have three daughters and the eldest of the three, Meeka, has been training her whole life to be the heir to the kingdom. King Jaffe Joffer is still alive but on his deathbed. Ever the pinnacle of egotism, the King decides to hold his own funeral celebration while he is still alive. It is all wonderfully hilarious. But the King dies at the conclusion of the ceremony and Akeem ascends to the throne. He is immediately beset upon by General Izzi, the ruler of Nexdoria, who is trying to marry off his own son to Meeka. Meeka, meanwhile, wants nothing to do with it. Nexdoria is a much more militaristic nation than Zamunda and the threat of war between the two nations hangs heavy, especially because Akeem never had a son who, according to Zamundan law, would have been the only one eligible to inherit the throne. Or so we think. We soon discover that during Akeem and Semmi’s original visit to Queens, Akeem was drugged and had sex with a woman who had his son. Sensing a way out of the situation with Izzi, Akeem travels to Queens to retrieve his son.

What makes this movie work so surprisingly well is its ability to blend elements of the original movie with new stuff. Akeem’s son, Lavelle, has been scalping tickets to St. John’s games outside Madison Square Garden when Akeem finds him and reveals his heritage. Everyone, including Lavelle’s mother, Mary, jet back to Zamunda. This leads to great friction between Meeka and Lavelle. Lavelle is the rightful heir to the throne simply because of his gender while Meeka has been training for the role her whole life. This reveals an interesting twist to the movie: 30 years earlier, Akeem crapped on Zamundan tradition by shunning an arranged marriage, going to Queens, and finding true love. 30 years later though, Akeem has done nothing to reform some very outdated traditions and customs, specifically doing away with the law that only males can inherit the throne. This leads to great conflict between Akeem, Lisa, and Meeka. Meanwhile, Lavelle falls in love with his groomer/barber, Mirembe, even though he has been arranged to marry Izzi’s daughter. There are lots of call backs to the original film here. Lavelle realizes he is being used by his father as a means to broker peace and prosperity between Zamunda and Nexdoria. He wants nothing to do with that and he flees for Queens with Miermbe. Akeem realizes he has turned into his father and goes to after his son, leaving Meeka in charge to defend Zamunda against whatever Izzi has in mind. In the end, Akeem returns to who he was at the end of the original movie, decrees that Meeka will inherit the throne as Queen, and Lavelle will be an ambassador to America. Naturally, we get a very happy ending.

I have to say…I loved this movie. There are some issues here and there though. As mentioned before, there were many elements of the original movie that were brought forward into the sequel with a few subtle twists. Lavelle and Mirembe’s relationship has some elements of Akeem and Lisa’s, but the movie did not take the time necessary to really develop it like they did with Akeem and Lisa. With Akeem and Lisa, much of the original movie was about them falling in love; with Lavelle and Mirembe, it just happens very suddenly and without a proper build up. It is not a huge problem, but it is there. On the other hand, Akeem is the most interesting character in the sequel. He has a lot going on. He is never really sure of who he is and whether he should be Akeem or his father until the very end of the movie. He is always trying to do what is right and what will keep his family and country safe but, in so doing, he has become perhaps too much like his father. This impacts his ability to develop a relationship with his son, right up until the very end.

One of the many things I loved about this move though is the cast. I was thrilled that roughly 90% of the original cast made it back for the sequel. This, of course, included Eddie Murphy and Aresnio Hall reprising their classic roles, including as the barbers and patrons at the Might T Sharp barber shop in Queens, along with Clint Smith. Shari Headley returned as Queen Lisa, James Earl Jones was back as King Jaffe Joffer, Louie Anderson (I guess he finally got promoted to making fries at McDowell’s after all) was back as Maurice, and even John Amos reprised his role as Cleo McDowell. I cannot tell you how happy it made me to see so many familiar faces. Yes, they all looked a bit older but every one of them delivered a tremendous performance in this sequel. But the new additions were phenomenal and made the overall cast one to remember. Leslie Jones absolutely kills it as Mary Junson, Lavelle’s mother. Jermaine Fowler was excellent as Lavelle. Tracy Morgan played Reem, Lavelle’s uncle. Wesley Snipes was simply magnificent as General Izzi. And we even get cameos from Morgan Freeman, Colin Jost, and Dikembe Mutombo. With a cast like that, there was no way this movie was going to fail.

To say it did not fail is a gross understatement. No, it is not as good as the original. How could it be, honestly? It is not as funny as the original, but it is damn hilarious in many places. It does an excellent job of honoring the spirit, message, and humor of the original movie while adding in important modern elements such as doing away with sexism and getting rid of antiquated ways of thinking. And it makes you laugh along the way…a lot. As far as sequels go, Coming 2 America was significantly better than Bill & Ted Face the Music. It is just a shame we had to wait some 33 years to get a sequel this funny and this good. If you loved the original, you will love the sequel as well.

Dave’s Rating: 4/5

Overall Nerds’ Rating on Coming 2 America (2021): 3.91/5.0