Premise: Prince Akeem returns to Queens to find his long-lost son.
I have no problem with nostalgia cinema and TV. Give me reboots and sequels to all the dormant films and franchises you can find. I really don't care. I don't. Sure, original ideas are nice, but I've seen enough movies to know that even the original ideas are just new spins on something I've seen before anyway. I do need the people making these projects to answer one question though: who is this for? That can mean a number of things. Maybe it's a pure nostalgia trip like the new Bill and Ted movie. Perhaps it's bringing the story to a new generation like The Force Awakens. It could even be unfinished business with the creator, like Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. These all have their own flaws, but I can forgive them for what they are in the event that I don't like them. What's harder for me to negotiate something like Coming 2 America.
Is there a need for a Coming to America sequel? Of course not. The first movie came out 30 years ago and had a very solid ending. It existed in a much different comedy environment as well. But, it's a sort of comfort food to have Eddie and Arsenio don the royal garments again, so why not? What a Coming to America sequel doesn't need to be is an introduction to it for a new generation. That's not who this movie is for.
Coming 2 America is a movie that's very happy to live in 1988. The jokes are mostly callbacks to that era. The music is 25-35 years old. Murphy and Hall are trying to bring back the multiple characters schtick that died 15 years ago with Norbit. This all works for me. I have enough affection for the first movie to appreciate how much this movie relives the fun of that. Where Coming 2 America loses me is the need to focus so much on a new generation. I don't really care what Jermaine Fowler, KiKi Layne, and Nomzamo Mbatha are all about.
This isn't a "passing the torch" movie. No one thinks there will be a Coming to America 3 without Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. And if a hypothetical third movie didn't include any of the cast under 40, no one would complain. It's such a waste to include these characters who are going through the same beats as the characters in the original movie and aren't even there for star making turns. I feel like Arsenio was barely in this movie. I would've rather had more of him than this new generation. That's the central miscalculation of this movie. Sure. Throw Wesley Snipes in there. That's a natural fit. Tracy Morgan and Leslie Jones even make a certain amount of sense. They're bit players though.
That's not to say any of the young people were bad. Jermain Fowler is good. I'd like to see him in more non-CBS sitcoms. KiKi Layne is a star in my book. Between this and The Old Guard, if she doesn't work her way into a Marvel movie soon then Disney execs are a bunch of fools. Nomzamo Mbatha is as lovely as Shari Headley was in the first movie. I just didn't need any of them in this movie that was not written for any of their strengths anyway.
Coming 2 America is fine. It's mostly a trip down memory lane. It has all characters and cameos I needed. Eddie Murphy is taking a strategic path back to relevance with this. However, I really didn't need this to even do the same basic plot as the original but with characters I have less affection for.
Side Thought: It's a little thing, but I'm so happy they stuck with this title. As a rule, any sequel with a 'Too' or 'To' in the original title should replace it with the number 2 and be done with it. There's no need to get cleverer than that. This is why I'm sad that we never got a Master and Commander: Un2 the Breach.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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