When Prince Akeem met his beloved Lisa in the heart of Queens way back in 1988, they got married in Akeem’s native land of Zamunda and lived happily ever after.
Or so we thought.
But as anyone who’s ever been married knows, marriage is never the end of the story: It’s just the beginning.
Indeed, Akeem and Lisa have lived most happily in Zamunda for decades, raising three daughters and residing luxuriantly in the royal palace. But issues threaten the forever after part.
Akeem’s father, King Jaffe Joffer, is dying. And while Akeem will certainly claim his pop’s throne when the time comes, Jaffe is not that confident that his son can hold it.
“You are not strong like I am,” he tells Akeem, betting that he’ll be assassinated in a matter of weeks after claiming the throne. “A month at tops,” he adds. (Jaffe is not known, it would seem, for his pep talks.)
And then there’s this: Legally, women aren’t allowed to rule in Zamunda. With three daughters and no sons, what’s to stop Zamunda’s aggressive neighbor, the country of Nextdoria, from invading? It seems as though Zamunda might become Nomorea.
But then Semmi, Akeem’s best friend and advisor, tosses out a strange, somewhat scandalous life preserver. Back in the day, when Akeem and Semmi were on the prowl for Akeem’s future betrothed in America, the prince may have had (ahem) relations with someone else—relations he doesn’t even remember because he was unknowingly (ahem) under the influence of some (ahem) possibly illegal substances. (Ahem.)
But no matter: Zamunda’s law offers no amendments to such dalliances. (But if they did, would they be called ahemendments?) A son is a son, and turns out Akeem has one—an unemployed 31-year-old who earns a little green by scalping basketball tickets.
All Akeem has to do to preserve the legacy of his beloved kingdom is find the guy, fly him to Africa, school him in Zamundan custom in less than a week and marry him off to the pretty-but-strange daughter of Nextdoria’s strongman, General Izzi.
‘Course, Akeem’s daughters might not be so happy about that. And it’s possible that his son—Lavelle Junson, apparently—might have some ideas of his own.
Akeem may be king, but he still has many masters. He has grave responsibilities to both his kingdom and his family, and those responsibilities aren’t easy to balance. He feels the weight of his father’s legacy and hundreds of years of Zamundan tradition. So he’s not thrilled with just handing the keys to the kingdom to a stranger who knows nothing about Zamunda—especially when his oldest daughter, Meeka, is clearly qualified to rule. We’ve got to give the good king credit for doing his best to find the right solution. And eventually—with an assist from his wife, Lisa, along with circumstance—he reaches the right one.
We should also give some credit to Meeka herself. For years, she’s trained to lead the country, and that sort of dedication should be acknowledged (even if we don’t see most of that training in the scope of the movie). She’s understandably upset when Lavelle enters the picture. And yet, she winds up helping him as he speed-trains to be a prince.
Lavelle certainly doesn’t act like a Zamundian prince throughout much of the movie. But in the end, he too makes an honorable choice that helps usher in the movie’s requisite happily ever after.
The royal family employs an incredibly ancient shaman called Baba, who magically knows of the existence of Akeem’s son in America. She encourages Akeem and Semmi to “follow the thunderbird” to find him. (They discover him hocking tickets for the Thunderbirds basketball team.)
But the family, and the country, seem predominantly Christian. Back in the United States, a Zamundan woman prepares to get married in a questionable religious establishment and asks if it truly is “a pious house of God.” (“If pious means cheap,” a man tells her.) When Akeem enters the “church,” he also seems to question the place even as he honors the faith behind it.
That church (called the Church of Holy Jubilation) is run by a really creepy preacher, whom someone labels “lecherous” and “misogynist.” But he does spout plenty of religious phrases as he stands near a neon cross. He and others offer hearty hallelujahs and amens.
Javelle is referred to as a “mistake,” and called other unflattering terms that we’ll get to in the Crude and Profane Language section.
A funeral includes some vague references to an afterlife. A stylized cross decorates an outfit. Lavelle’s mother’s name is Mary. “Like the virgin,” someone says—an ironic joke considering Mary’s sexual history.
Mary herself says that back in the day, she was a “ho,” and we see her encounter with Akeem: It includes her waving something between her legs, which seems like it’s a way to entice Akeem. Akeem recalls the encounter hazily: At first, he insists he didn’t have sex at all, but does recall that a “wild boar burst into the room” and repeatedly rammed him. (We see some flashback gyrations that help illustrate why Akeem conjured up that story in his impaired recollections.)
That serves as a warm up of sorts, I suppose, for a seriously sexually preoccupied film. When Lavelle and mother Mary first arrive in Zamunda, both are bathed by servants. Three scantily dressed females say they’re here to bathe Lavelle (they promise him they’ll do so naked), and while we don’t see the bath itself, someone says that Lavelle’s post-bath smile indicates how enjoyable he found it. We do see Mary in a massive bathtub; a man rises from the bubbly water and tells her that her privates are clean, but Mary suggests that he should “clean” her again, just to be sure. (Akeem makes a reference to the “royal bathers” as well.)
Characters kiss. Akeem asks for sex from his wife, Lisa, to no avail. General Izzi’s hype man calls him “the most well-endowed man in Africa.” Much is made of Akeem’s apparent lack of manhood (given he conceived three daughters). At a funeral, we’re told that after the honoree died, “people didn’t even have sex anymore” because they were so distraught. We hear many, many crass references and allusions to male and female anatomical parts, along with jokes and references to sexual histories, sexual predilictions and gender reassignment surgery.
Women dress pretty provocatively throughout the movie, displaying cleavage and midriff and plenty of leg. (A few are seen in bikinis.) Someone criticizes Lavelle’s un-princely walk, telling him that he walks like an American pimp. Characters dance provocatively as well, and one elderly woman twerks during a marriage festival. A singer leads a band called Sexual Chocolate. Some stone statues (seen in the background) depict sagging breasts.
On a more philosophical level, Zamunda is presented as lagging well behind American sensibilities in terms of gender equality. A princess, for instance, professes no wants or desires of her own, but only wants to please her future husband; when that future husband asks her to stay where she is for a moment, she winds up standing in that exact spot for more than an hour.
In a scene that straddles this section and the one below, Lavelle is asked to submit to ceremonial circumcision. Baba shows off the foreskins of previous rulers of Zamunda, kissing them. Suffice it to say that things go downhill from there in a suggestive, deeply uncomfortable scene played for humor that doesn’t quite go as might be expected.
The royal palace is invaded by enemy soldiers. Members and associates of the royal family engage in a hand-to-hand free-for-all: People are hit, kicked and conked by staves, sticks and furniture legs.
People fight elsewhere, too, and are sometimes choked. We see Nextdorian soldiers comically train for a potential invasion of Zamunda, and General Izzi throws down plenty of threats. Javelle is told that he must retrieve whiskers from a lion if he’s to be worthy of a king: The quest leads to a very angry and aggressive lion.
The s-word is used about a dozen times. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “d—n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused three times. Akeem refers to himself as the “MFing king.” In a series of outtakes, we hear a bleeped f-word.
In Akeem’s 1988 encounter with Mary (which begins in a bar, by the way), the woman exhales what appears to be marijuana smoke in his face, leading to the haziness of the actual encounter. (We later hear someone say that Mary “drugged him and had sex with him.”) Later, Mary and Lisa (Akeem’s wife) get drunk at a party. When Akeem tells her that she’s “intoxicated,” she snaps that he’s been “drunk and high” before himself (which led to Javelle).
Characters drink wine, beer and champagne at dinners and parties. When someone asks if a suspect church is really a “house of god,” someone suggests it’s more like “a crack house of God.” Javelle walks into a throne room with a golden champagne bottle.
We hear a reference to vomit. A few people eat “organic hamburgers” that have been made, apparently, of grass. In a job interview, someone asks if Javelle’s mother has any gambling or drug problems. In that same interview, the employer excuses a time when he wore blackface.
While strolling the grounds of the royal palace with his royal groomer, Javelle is shocked to hear that the woman likes American movies. He finds that American films are pretty bereft of merit, given they’re all superhero films and reboots and “sequels to old movies that nobody wants.”
Wink, wink.
Coming to America originally came to the screen in 1988, featuring Eddie Murphy at the height of his popularity and co-starring the ascendant comedian/actor/talk-show host Arsenio Hall. It was the third highest-grossing film of the year. But let’s be honest: It’s not like anyone was clamoring for a follow-up, especially after more than 30 years.
But here we are, with the movie coming out in a much different cinematic environment.
Yes, of course, we’re talking partly about COVID, forcing Coming 2 America onto Amazon rather than a traditional theatrical release. But it also rides to Amazon sporting a PG-13 rating than the original’s R—a change, actually, that director Craig Brewer felt like he had to defend.
“If an R-rated movie would work then we would do an R-rated movie,” Brewer told the Wall Street Journal (and quoted by the Hollywood Reporter). “I think we still have a really hilarious movie, and we do push the boundaries on a PG-13 movie here and there. If you look at the first movie, other than the gratuitous nudity of the bathers and some swearing, it is actually rather wholesome. It’s got a fairytale feel to it.”
Wholesome—either for the original or for its only slightly milder sequel—may be a stretch.
Yes, the film does indeed have a fairy tale undercurrent, but the visible rapids here are pretty raw. The sexual jokes and innuendos feel like they make up much of the script, interspersed with plenty of foul language and a smattering of substance abuse. If Coming 2 America qualifies as innocent, then a bottle of 80-proof Scotch would qualify as iced tea.
I can agree with Brewer in that Coming 2 America pushes the PG-13 rating at times. Is it funny? Sometimes. Murphy still has some comedic chops, and he gets a nice lift from his supporting cast, especially a scene-stealing Wesley Snipes as General Izzi. But is this belated sequel fit for a 13-year-old to watch, much less watch alone? I think not.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
