Mr. Movie: ‘Coming 2 America’ is better than the original
Coming 2 America
Sequels don’t usually take over 30 years to happen. The first film is a hit and — presto — a cleverly-named sequel is a year or two later. They are rarely as good as the original and, unfortunately, most spawn one or two more.
In 1988 the original “Coming to America” helped make Eddie Murphy an A-list star. It also propelled Arsenio Hall into the limelight. He went on to do a few movies and some TV, and had successful late night talk show gig.
“Coming 2 America” reunites long-time friends Murphy and Hall. Akeem is now married and back in Zamunda. He learns of a bastard child living in America, finds the young man and takes him back to Zamunda to learn to be royalty.
He also brings the son’s mom.
The film takes lots of side-trips. One is a neighboring country’s general wanting the newfound son to marry his daughter. General Izzi is played wonderfully over-the-top by Wesley Snipes. By the way, most of the actors — including Murphy — are over-the-top in this one.
Akeem’s father — done again by James Earl Jones — passes away and it makes him king. Succession is on his mind. Akeem’s oldest daughter has trained all of her life for the role and then Jermaine Fowler’s bastard son pops up.
The screenplay is by Kenya Barris, Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield. Blaustein and Murphy connected on SNL in the 1980s and he and Sheffield have written several of Murphy’s most popular projects. Barris co-wrote the “Shaft” remake, “Girls Trip,” and was deeply involved in TV’s “Black-ish”.
Their screenplay is loaded with double-entendres and quick political jabs, and it pokes good-natured fun at past Murphy movies and does a nice knock on sequels. Pay close attention. Their script, and the ad-libbing from an excellent cast, moves fast and is packed with laughs.
If you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss a lot of them.
The script’s chaos, and that of the actors, is managed nicely by director Craig Brewer. He most recently directed Murphy in 2018’s excellent biopic, “Dolemite is My Name.” Brewer also did “Hustle & Flow,” my favorite film from 2005.
Brewer brilliantly cuts and pastes the packed-with-cameos, vignette-like sequences of the script together and turns what could have been bedlam into a nicely conceived, but often chaotic whole. It’s a nice piece of work.
Murphy’s now King Akeem plays it straight and is the focal point of the story. Murphy lets the many characters he plays, and those done by Hall, and the lines of his co-stars, generate the fun. Free to roam, they provoke everything from a small giggle here and there to unrestrained laughter.
And do stick around for the credits. It’s filled with some pretty good bloopers and John Legend does a song at the end. Don’t get lost in his beautiful vocal like I did. The song’s lyrics are hilarious.
The bottom-line: Though it had its moments, I don’t remember liking “Coming to America” all that well. Like some forms of alcohol, and some foods, aging seems to have made the concept better and in this case the 33-year sequel-wait is worth it.
▪ Rated PG-13 for heavy language, sexual references and mature themes. You can see the film on Amazon Prime.
▪ Rating: 4 out of 5
Raya and the Last Dragon
“Raya and the Last Dragon” is the animated tale that pits dedication, loyalty and bravery against deceit, deviousness and greed. Or to put it a different way, this offering from Disney’s animated movie machine dishes up the usual, very familiar, and very tired, dish.
The film opens with Raya narrating 500 years of the history of the folks inhabiting Kumandra. At one time the inhabitants cohabitated with dragons. Then evil struck in the form of the Druun. The dust and smoke they produce turns humans to stone. All that stopped them from totally destroying the world was the selfless act of one, brave dragon.
Sisu’s efforts got all the people turned back into people but the dragons stayed turned to stone. Then Sisu disappeared. At that point the dragon-shaped land was divided up into five kingdoms.
Kumandra is shaped like a dragon. Instead of being one nation and working together, the peoples of Fang, Heart, Spine Talon and Tail began to look after just themselves. The selfless people of Heart protected all of them from the return of the Druun. An event triggered by Raya caused the Druun’s to return and sent her scurrying about the land in search of Sisu. She needs the dragon to help save her people.
All of this is couched in a Buddhist-like philosophy.
The only group that will even be remotely entertained by this is small children. Unfortunately, the heavy philosophical overtones will likely go over their heads. On the other hand, it will be far too simple and — for lack of a better term — childish for adults to come close to enjoying.
Worse, the animation is just so-so. Dragons — as we know — aren’t supposed to be pretty. Sisu and her kin look more like the horses from My Little Pony than the dragons of “How to Train Your Dragon.” The land of Kumandra is stereotypical Disney and not even close to original. These things, and an awful script, come courtesy of four directors who wrote the story with four other writers. Movies by committee rarely work and this one is a real mess.
▪ Rated PG for mature themes. It can be seen at the Fairchild Cinemas Queensgate 12 and Southgate 10 and on Disney+.
▪ Rating: 2 out of 5
Chaos Walking
Interestingly, the title tells you a lot about the structure of the movie. Though it’s hard to define a chase movie as walking, the chaos part of the title says it all.
“Chaos Walking” is a disaster.
Spider-Man’s Tom Holland stars as Todd. He lives on New World. The men living on New World migrated from Earth. There are no women. Creatures living on the planet are said to have killed them all.
Something in the atmosphere causes the men to be able to hear thoughts. To say the least, keeping a secret is difficult. With a purple mist surrounding their heads, men mentally mumble to themselves to try to keep others from hearing their thoughts.
Then a woman from another ship from Earth crashes on the planet. She’s played by Star Wars star, Daisy Ridley. Women aren’t subject to the planet’s mind-reading laws. Their minds can’t be heard. At this point you’re thinking — hmmmm — one woman and a planet full of men. The fight over who gets her has to be the plot.
It’s not.
That might have been more interesting than the direction director Doug Liman took writer and scriptwriter, Patrick Ness’s book. Ness co-writes this screenplay and also wrote the screenplay for the terrific horror film, “A Monster Calls.”
It, too, was based on his book.
The idea of some men using thought reading process as a power to control others is interesting. So are the possible ways this kind of a story can be taken. In this case, “Chaos Walking” has the powerful mayor of Todd’s town wanting to control the woman because she came from a ship that has weapons. Those weapons can be used to kill the creatures who killed the women and control the planet.
The woman doesn’t like the idea nor does Todd. So they run and are — in turn — chased.
“Chaos Walking” is fraught with problems. Huge ones. It’s surprising because Liman is a brilliant director and did one of my all time favorite sci-fi films, “Edge of Tomorrow.” This one had possibilities that never quite materialized. I blame that on the script.
Christopher Ford helped Ness with the screenplay. He penned the very clever “Robot & Frank” and helped write “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”
Maybe Ness and Ford didn’t get along. Or maybe the Ness story didn’t have enough depth to make it interesting. Whatever the case, the script they produced is just no fun.
And that’s at the very heart of the matter. Concepts like “Chaos Walking” are hard to buy. My wife is a psychologist. She says if everyone could read everyone’s thoughts all the time it wouldn’t just be chaos. It would be insanity. No one could tolerate that much stimulation and the whole planet would be packed with babbling idiots.
My thoughts exactly.
The best thing to have done would have been to introduce some fun into the story. It helps those of us watching to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the film. Once in awhile Limen and the writers give it a shot and have Holland and Ridley a chance to play off of Todd’s ribald thoughts.
However, those scenes are not well enough written to ignite any kind of spark.
▪ Rated PG-13 for mature themes, violence and language. It’s playing at the Fairchild Cinemas Southgate 10 and Queensgate 12.
▪ Rating: 2 out of 5
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: ‘Coming 2 America’ is better than the original."