Coming to America 2 (discussion)

[joneblaze]

I'm afraid I found its eternally unequal
BUT finally a sequel !!


PRAISE : For years ,years and years i heard there would be a sequel to Coming to America (1988)
Finally in 2021 it hits the small screen due to our Covid times.
The story this time around Set in the lush and royal country of Zamunda, newly-crowned King Akeem (Eddie Murphy) and his trusted confidante Semmi (Arsenio Hall) embark on a mission to find Akeem's son !!
Murphy and Hall can still charm and get a laughs out of me here and there in the movie.
I have to say this was an ambitious effort by all involved .The set design is great and the costumes by Ruth E. Carter are incredible !! Great to see the old school cast together again.
The nods to the previous film and others were fun.I enjoyed and was surprised by the cameos.
There are some truly laugh out loud moments here and there. Actors giving it their all :KiKi Layne as Princess Meeka Joffer, Akeem's and Lisa's first daughter,Wesley Snipes (VERY FUNNY)as General Izzi, Imani's older brother and leader of Nextdoria,and Nomzamo Mbatha as Mirembe, a royal groomer and Lavelle's love interest.


PROBLEMS : When part of the story can only hold half my interest that's a problem.It seems like writers Kenya Barris,Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield just decided to throw in a little bit of everything to see if it would stick because there are music videos,dance sequences(I DID ENJOY THE LOVELY VISUALS) and the screaming of one liners throughout and when you do that you get a jumbled film.
Some of the actors/comedians are the same as they are in every project they are in...loud and obnoxious.
I have seen forced and fast tracked plots before but this film does it to a T !!
Definitely some dull and unfunny moments.

Scale of 1-10 a 7

 

[dawilleyone]

Man this shit was garbage. Eddie is my guy, but this was by far his worst movie. Terrible script, the acting was before average. Snipes was good though. Some of the African "jokes", didn't work at all. Glad this shit was free on prime.

Come on. I was disappointed by the flick, but this wasn't even remotely close to being Murphy's worst film. I'm just hoping his other worse films are so bad you never saw them. The Adventures of Pluto Nash , Best Defense, A Thousand Words, and I'll even throw in Beverly Hills Cop III. All worse then Coming 2 America IMO.

 

[dawilleyone]

From a storytelling perspective, I didn't feel that Lavelle and Mirembe spent enough time together for them to be in love like they were supposed to be. I don't know if you do a montage, or what, but you have to show them grow towards each other. I was like, two haircuts and this dude in love?

I had this same reaction after watching the first time. On my second time thru I paid more attention and there was a fairly long scene where they walked through the palace grounds together talking about their ambitions and goals and it was more clear that was the foundation for their feelings for each other. Still a bit much to be instantly in love, but it was more than I noticed the first time around.

For a while I thought, they were going to do a twist where the Lavelle wasn't the son, but he and the eldest daughter were going to fall for each other instead.

 

[TimRock]

Morgan Freeman narrating James Earl Jones' death....

 

[Darkness's]

Come on. I was disappointed by the flick, but this wasn't even remotely close to being Murphy's worst film. I'm just hoping his other worse films are so bad you never saw them. The Adventures of Pluto Nash , Best Defense, A Thousand Words, and I'll even throw in Beverly Hills Cop III. All worse then Coming 2 America IMO.

Pluto Nash was a stink bomb. I don't remember best defense. I remembwr a 1994 flick were he was running for congressman. VA.ire in Brooklyn though it dont get no worse than that you would think he wohlsve red the scripts they handed to him and thought I himself " this is a bad idea , I think I'll pass"

 

[dawilleyone]

Pluto Nash was a stink bomb. I don't remember best defense. I remembwr a 1994 flick were he was running for congressman. VA.ire in Brooklyn though it dont get no worse than that you would think he wohlsve red the scripts they handed to him and thought I himself " this is a bad idea , I think I'll pass"

Yo the movie you're thinking of was "The Distinguished Gentleman" where he ran for congress. I think that movie was about on Par with the Coming 2 America sequel in terms of memorable scenes. I never saw all of Vampire in Brooklyn. All I can remember is Dwayne Wayne from Different World having to many scenes and not being funny at all.

 

[CoTtOnMoUf]

Whole movie was a giant letdown.

 

[Darkness's]

Yo the movie you're thinking of was "The Distinguished Gentleman" where he ran for congress. I think that movie was about on Par with the Coming 2 America sequel in terms of memorable scenes. I never saw all of Vampire in Brooklyn. All I can remember is Dwayne Wayne from Different World having to many scenes and not being funny at all.

Yeah that's the one I was thinking about distinguished gentle man. I heard they originally wanted eddie Murphy for ghost busters before Ernie hud son got that part. That movie would've been an even bigger hit than it already was.

 

[keone]

i agree with capone

 

[pookie]

just finished watching it and I liked it, it started off bad but turned enjoyable quickly

 

[johnnybills]

Coming 2 America was the equivalent to Drumline 2

 

[TimRock]

i agree with capone

Yeah. I've never seen the son before so it was kind of weird watching him on screen. Everyone else that had medium to big parts (aside from the barber and eddie's Daughters), I was familiar with them. But I've never seen that dude before until this movie.

 

[dawilleyone]

Coming 2 America was the equivalent to Drumline 2

I did not know this existed. And Drumline was one of my favorite movies

 

[dawilleyone]

Yeah. I've never seen the son before so it was kind of weird watching him on screen. Everyone else that had medium to big parts (aside from the barber and eddie's Daughters), I was familiar with them. But I've never seen that dude before until this movie.

I said the same thing then after checking out his credits, I realized he played LaKeith Stanfield's buddy in "Sorry to Bother You" but it clearly wasn't a very memorable role. Dude also co-starred on a whole TV show I never saw.

 

[darth frosty]

10 Thoughts I Had about Coming 2 America—The Sequel to the Best Black Movie of All Time

Panama Jackson
50 minutes ago

1.0K
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.co...ng-2-america-the-sequel-to-1846447710#replies



It’s been almost a week since Coming 2 America dropped on Amazon Prime Video. The movie–highly anticipated by most of African America since it was announced—is the sequel to the 1988 blockbuster, Coming to America. I, a member of African America, highly anticipated it because the original movie is among my favorite movies of all time, if not my favorite. I’ve written about it several times, even calling it the Best Black Movie of All Time (which I still think is true). Needless to say, I was planning to watch it as soon as I was able. Thursday evening, I saw somebody mention on Facebook that Coming 2 America was available and off I went to hit “Watch now.” Instead of writing a review—social media has provided MORE than enough of those—I will offer up 10 thoughts I had about the sequel.

1. There was no way this movie was going to be as good as the first one. And if I’m being honest, I’m not even sure how “good” the first movie is. What I do know is that the amount of love I have for the first one renders me entirely incapable of being impartial about it. Because of that love there is literally no way this was going to live up to unless it literally became the greatest movie of all time of ever in the history of the galaxy. And that, it was not. With that being said, I found it to be highly entertaining once I got over any expectations I had, which it failed to meet but I probably shouldn’t have had in the first place. What I’m saying is this; if you were disappointed in this movie that was clearly only made for the fans of the original, then that’s a “you” problem, not a movie problem. Fight your moms, bro.

2. The first time I watched it, I literally turned it off after the first 20 minutes because of how ridiculous the premise of the movie was. I was actually sad that of all the potential stories they could have come up with—and I believe they could have come up with 100 better premises for this movie—the one that was greenlit was Akeem being date-raped, basically, by Leslie Jones’ character. For starters, I didn’t even believe that Akeem was a virgin (and lowkey still find that plotline hard to believe—he never once smashed a bather??) though I realize this was one of those “finally answered questions from the first movie” for many. Either way, I re-watched it of course and once I got over that the rest of the movie was fine in the same over-the-top enjoyable ways as the first.



3. I cannot tell you how enjoyable each of the nods to the first movie were to me. McDowell’s, and the fact that they’re still jacking McDonald’s ideas, made me smile. The fact that we found out that Akeem’s first non-wife is STILL jumping around and barking like a dog is just cruel, but way to pay it back. And I literally laughed and smiled from ear to ear at the return of Randy Watson and Sexual Chocolate, one of the greatest bands in all of Black Music History. The last 5 minutes of the movie made everything before it entirely worth it for my heart.

4. Despite the fact that Nextdooria is literally the stupidest, laziest name for a country ever and the writers should be ashamed that they decided upon that—seriously—Wesley Snipes was a hoot, even if his role and presence seemed entirely contrived and WAY too easy to negotiate out of. Also, I know folk were like “why was Rotimi even there if he had no real lines?” Me though, I thought he nailed that part. Same with everybody who was in it with barely a speaking role but was just there to be there. Morgan Freeman, Dikembe Motumbo, Michael Blackson, Rick Ross, etc. Shit, I wish they would have called me; I would have been there in a minute.

5. Even though the premise was sus, I did find Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan to be highly entertaining. And that’s the first time I’ve ever really enjoyed a Leslie Jones performance. I thought she and Shari Headley played off one another well and frankly, she was doing her thing in every scene.

6. It was really good to see Eddie and Arsenio on screen together again even if both of them seemed a little bit too much like limp versions of the original characters.

7. I didn’t mention this before because they need their own segment: The barbers at My-T-Sharp need a television show. “I had a dog named King” took me OUT. I’d watch that show all day everyday. It was so nice to see that crew again and they’re still sharp (no pun intended) and funny and their time on screen was worth every single minute they got.

8. If I’m Prince Levelle Johnson, I’m running off with my barber too; she was bad bad. And Teyona Taylor was bad bad. But yeah, still.

9. Could we get a stat count on how many former princes were killed in the test of trying to procure the whisker of a lion? SOMEBODY had to die in that endeavor, right? I’m not Zamundan, but King Akeem should probably do an audit on odd and archaic traditions since he’s seeing the light on his daughter becoming Queen and ruler of Zamunda when he dies


10. James Earl Jones is a national treasure. I laughed so hard every time he told Akeem to kill Semmi.

 

[Iron Man]

I'm just finding out after checking OG actors on IMDB from the original movie that Midori is listed as Bather (as Michele Watley)..

 

[keone]

 

[keone]

 

[Darkness's]

I'm just finding out after checking OG actors on IMDB from the original movie that Midora is listed as Bather (as Michele Watley)..

You mean midori right?

 

[Iron Man]

You mean midori right?

Yeah her

 

[Darkness's]

A little off subject but I nevef saw fhe 2019 shaft movie. Was it good?

 

[Goingmark40]

I liked it. Nothing they would have done would have measured up to the original. I went into for the nostalgia and get some good laughs and be entertained....i was. The storyline was predictable but i don't need surprises in comedies....just gimme some good laughs. The actors did a good job, the wardrobe and settings were colorful. I'd give it a 8

 

[jack walsh13]

Man I laughed my ass off
It got a lot of hate for no reason.

 

[Last Dayz]

I liked it. Nothing they would have done would have measured up to the original. I went into for the nostalgia and get some good laughs and be entertained....i was. The storyline was predictable but i don't need surprises in comedies....just gimme some good laughs. The actors did a good job, the wardrobe and settings were colorful. I'd give it a 8

This.

And i thought this shit was going to be horrible and plus i was pissed off at first but i should've never underestimated Murph, and it was good to see some of the old characters back.

Plus they had some beautiful black women up in there.

 

[Duece]

A little off subject but I nevef saw fhe 2019 shaft movie. Was it good?

They turned it into a comedy and I found it funny.

I personally would love to see Shaft rebooted and returned to it's mature, action movie roots.

 

[Flawless]

A little off subject but I nevef saw fhe 2019 shaft movie. Was it good?

It's decent Jeffery Wright as a gangster is priceless.

 

[Quek9]

It's decent Jeffery Wright as a gangster is priceless.

Everybody was fucking with Tiger Woo.

 

[Duece]

It's decent Jeffery Wright as a gangster is priceless.

He wasn't in the 2019 version.

 

[the13thround]

It's decent Jeffery Wright as a gangster is priceless.

Everybody was fucking with Tiger Woo.

He wasn't in the 2019 version.

Yep, he was in Shaft 2000.

 

[Darkness's]

It's decent Jeffery Wright as a gangster is priceless.

That was the 2000 flick with busta rhymes . I'm talking about the newest one with his son

 

[dtownsfinest]

That was the 2000 flick with busta rhymes . I'm talking about the newest one with his son

I turned that shit off but it wasn't that it was bad it was just the tone that threw me off. Turned into a buddy cop flick type shit.

 

[godofwine]

My question is, where in the hell with the little sister? Everybody's talking about Daryl, fuck Daryl what about the little sister? Where was she?

 

[TimRock]

My question is, where in the hell with the little sister? Everybody's talking about Daryl, fuck Daryl what about the little sister? Where was she?

maybe her and Daryl ended up together and didn't have time for the shit.

 

[tallblacknyc]

there is no such thing as coming America 2


yeah I went there

 

[jack walsh13]

One of the things I liked about the first movie was that it had a lot of quotables. This one not so much. Didn't Leslie Jones character drug Akeem or they alluded to it? If so, that was a big risk that no one would speak out.

That's actually a good point no one is talking about