« Coming 2 America » was clearly designed to be crowd-pleasing back when crowds were possible, and as such it’s among the few movies redirected from theaters to streaming that have genuinely lost something because of it. That said, it’s still a good deal of fun, reassembling old faces from the 1988 original while adding plenty of new ones.
The first movie came at the height of Eddie Murphy’s rise to box-office stardom, after a string of hits in the 1980s. The new film follows a rousing comeback with « Dolemite is My Name » and his triumphant Emmy-winning return to « Saturday Night Live, » with more nostalgia — including plans for another « Beverly Hills Cop » sequel — yet to come. At its core, « Coming to America » presented a simple and sweet fairy tale, about a pampered prince traveling to Queens in search of true love. Yet the movie spent much of its time simply serving as a zany showcase for Murphy and Arsenio Hall, spending ample time in the makeup chair for their barber-shop characters and more. Directed by « Dolemite’s » Craig Brewer, « Coming 2 » reprises all of that, with a nicely cast next-generation element that essentially replays the plot from a different angle.
