Review of Coming to America (1988) by Norman B — 02 Nov 2013

Ahh Eddie Murphy in his prime. Coming to America is the story of a young African Prince Akeem who travels to America to find a woman he can eventually fall in love with, thus avoiding an arranged marriage to a woman raised to obey his every single command. He is accompanied to the United States of America with his friend Semmi and together the two men give up their money and possessions to live a life of near poverty in Queens, New York. They work at a local fast food restaurant called McDowell's which is an exact copy of McDonald's, and is where Akeem meets the daughter of the shop's owner and slowly falls in love with her over time.

Unlike many of Eddie Murphy's later role, his performance as the Prince with a strong moral core is actually surprisingly grounded. He instead leaves the over the top extravagance to Arsenio Hall's Semmi character. So good is the chemistry between the two of them, it's astounding that they never capitalized with future films together. They each play numerous roles throughout Coming to America, allowing them to stretch their comic range, and the barber's scene in particular is the stand out with them portraying old men who constantly argue about boxing and who is the greatest ever. These days the barber shop would've received it's own spin-off, but instead their scenes remain fresh and hilarious even many of years after Coming to America was released. It is a shame then that Eddie Murphy would go on to use the same idea in many of his future movies, but never to the same effect. Like so many comedies the more you see it the more you come to love it and Coming to America has almost reached high level status among people born in the 1980's. Yet there are problems, as Landis fails to capitalize on the over abundance of talent in front of him, instead phoning in directorial duties. The stale plot never offers anything new or original, which restricts Coming to America from really taking flight as it could have. Luckily there's more than enough individual laughs to make it more than worthwhile.

The actual plot of Coming to America is completely predictable throughout. Yet it's kept going with excellent performances from Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, and James Earl Jones (playing Akeem's father) and there are more than enough laughs to make this an enduring classic from an era that produced so many. By far the comedy is at it's strongest and right from the start it scores one laugh after another. The amusing scenes of Prince Akeem being waited on hand and foot to the point that he has women to wash him in the bath (The royal penis is clean your heinous) is just hilarious to me and it probably was a real fantasy of Eddie Murphy's hey who knows. And it doesn't stop there because pretty much every scene and every line of dialogue has a pay off be it the decision to head to Queens as what better place to find a queen through to the whole series of jokes about Daryll being the heir to the Soul Glo fortune. In a way it probably helps that with Murphy teamed up with Arsenio Hall the jokes are shared more equally as does the fact that in Akeem Murphy has to tone down his loud comedy and keep it simple, allowing others to deliver those expected loud expletive filled jokes. Coming to America may just be one of the best comedy films of all time, and has more than enough to keep you entertained throughout trust me.