‘Coming to America 2’ fails to live up to original

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Director Craig Brewer and lead star Eddie Murphy have recently released a sequel to the 1988 blockbuster hit “Coming to America.” The film follows a similar blueprint to the original film with Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) constantly cracking jokes and living a life of royalty with his wife and children.

Although the movie tries, it is not able to maintain quite the same level of humor, most likely because the modern-era film is not able to say as many controversial jokes compared to 33 years ago when the first one was released.

Still, the sequel spins in a direction many fans may not expect, with newly-crowned King Akeem being informed that he may have a son that was born out of wedlock back when he first traveled to America to find his wife.

Throughout the film, Akeem is tasked with the challenges of finding his son and attempting to allow him to be accustomed to the life of a prince, while he is trying to convince his daughter who has been training her whole life to be the heir to the throne that this decision is what’s best for the kingdom.

One of the more hilarious back-and-forths is between Semmi (played by Arsenio Hall) and Akeem’s son’s Uncle Reem (played by Tracy Morgan). They start off as enemies because of how different they are in perspectives, and that creates some funny situations as they both work towards the goal of Akeem’s son Lavelle Junson becoming prince.

The plot of the movie passes extremely quickly, with little buildup towards the problems of the lead characters. 

Overall character development is sound, to be fair, with many introductions to characters having some sort of moment that showed what kind of humor they would bring to the film.

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Arsenio Hall is a true standout due to his ability to play as one of the lead roles and also show up in many parts in the film as side characters with different personalities. 

Many different jokes and humorous scenes take place throughout the movie but, compared to the original, just don’t quite have the same amount of wittiness and typical Eddie Murphy comedy.

Overall I would rate the film a 3 out of 5 stars. Living up to the expectations of the original is always a tall task, but especially when the original was released more than 30 years prior.

“Coming 2 America” is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.