Movie Review: Coming 2 America (2021)

Synopsis: Roughly 30 years after visiting the United States to find a wife, Akeem's father dies, making him king of the African nation of Zamunda. Akeem has three daughters but no male heir, making him a target for assassination from the militaristic country of Nexdoria. His lone hope is returning to Queens to retrieve the illegitimate son, Lavelle, he recently learned about and give Lavelle a crash course on how to be both a prince and the next in line for the throne.

Who's in it? The movie stars Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Shari Headley and Leslie Jones.

Review: After re-watching Coming to America this weekend and being reminded about how great of a movie that was, I remembered there was a recent sequel to the film and decided to watch Coming 2 America for the first time. Unfortunately, as is often the case with unnecessary cash-grab sequels, it just didn't live up to the original.

The movie was basically a "what happened to Akeem (Murphy)" plot that addressed the sexist concept that only men could rule by having Akeem pick a son he just learned about over his daughter, Meeka (KiKi Layne), who had been training to be his heir almost from the time she was born. Unfortunately, while some incredible acting did help a bit, that somewhat simple plot proved to be a problem.

First, for a film that is entitled Coming 2 America, the characters spend surprisingly little time in the United States. Most of the movie is set in Zamunda with the occasional short-lived visit to Queens to move the plot along and re-introduce some of the characters from the first film. In other words, it largely abandoned the premise that made the first movie work.

The story itself was also extremely predictable. Lavelle (Fowler) adapts to the whole prince thing a little too easily but at no point was I ever convinced he was going to wind up being Akeem's heir when Meeka remained the clearly obvious better choice and Lavelle was much more interested in being with the woman he fell in love with (Nomzamo Mbatha) than marrying for strategic purposes.

In fact, Akeem's reluctance to just name Meeka his heir to begin with kind of tarnished him as a character. The first movie was all about him being willing to ignore tradition only to have him be the exact opposite without a whole lot of explanation about why.

My wife and I both agreed this movie would have been considerably better had it focused on Meeka and, much like the first film, had her travel to Queens in search of her true love, like her father did. It would have been a rehash with a female lead and Murphy in a supporting role, but I think it would have been much more enjoyable, especially with Meeka facing more-modern obstacles, like the internet making it more difficult to hide her identity.

Final Opinion: I won't go as far as to say I hated the movie because it did have a talented cast that made at least parts of the film enjoyable to watch. I just think the plot dragged it down and made it nowhere near as memorable as the original.

My Grade: C

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Here are some reviews of other movies from 2021:

Movie Review: Spider in the Attic (2021)

Movie Review: Encanto (2021)

Movie Review: There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)