Coming to America

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Shari Headley, James Earl Jones, Made Sinclair, Eriq La Salle, John Amos, Louie Anderson, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy
Directed by: John Landis
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Romance
1988

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An African prince (Eddie Murphy) travels to America to find an intelligent wife he can respect.

Review:

Tim: Coming to America is kind of a classic 80s comedy, and for good reason. The movie offers up a story that feels unique- it's not one we've seen a hundred times before. It has some incredibly funny moments. Ultimately, it descends into a bit too much predictability for me to consider it a great movie, but that's taking nothing away from this thoroughly enjoyable comedy.

The original story comes from Eddie Murphy, and you can see he captured something excellent with this idea. We see a wealthy African prince and his best friend coming to America to seek a wife. This immediately sets up so many comedic potentials. You have the class differences between a wealthy African family and one of the poorer areas of Queens. You have culture differences between Africa and America. The story is also a romance and there's even a few intense scenes sprinkled in. The movie does a lot and more often not, it all works together. You have to appreciate the scope of the script, which includes a lot in a small package.

The movie obviously lives and dies by its lead, Eddie Murphy. Murphy is quite excellent in the film. His Prince Akeem is kind, intelligent, and funny. He might be royalty, but he's the kind of person who would succeed in any environment. Murphy plays him with such earnestness and just a hint of naivety. He quickly becomes a character you care about and find it easy to root for. Murphy's performance doesn't stop there, as he also plays three other characters throughout the course of the film. This allows him to showcase his acting range and it also allows him to tap into various aspects of his personality. Akeem requires Murphy to show restraint, but these other characters allow him to embrace more comedy, over-the-top antics. Complete moment of candor here- I always thought the Eddie Murphy-playing-multiple-roles thing came from The Nutty Professor. It was really enlightening for me to learn that started eight years early than I expected. Murphy is a big reason this movie is so good.

You also have to give credit to the supporting cast. Arsenio Hall is quite good as Semmi. He has many opportunities to make the audience laugh and he takes advantage of them. He makes a great pairing with Murphy and it was legitimately fun to watch these two interact so much. James Earl Jones was excellently cast as well, and he brings a great deal of class and regalness to the role. It was fun seeing Eriq La Salle in an unlikable supporting role- he did a great job with it. I also loved seeing Samuel L. Jackson in a terrific scene. The movie's cast includes other strong performances- John Amos, Louie Anderson, Dom Ameche, and Ralph Bellamy. What bothers me is that all of these solid performers are men. The main role for actresses went to Shari Headley, and I was fairly disappointed with her performance. Headley is never bad, but she's always unremarkable. This is what it felt like to me- in the late 1980s (like most of Hollywood history), the focus has been on the men and the women were too often an afterthought. This movie assembled a great collection of male talent, but Headley was the best option for the romantic lead? Her performance felt bland from beginning to end. I'm not sure she did anything memorable in the entire film. She certainly comes across as intelligent, but her performance isn't where it needed to be. I didn't get a sense of chemistry between Murphy and Headley. She gives an adequate performance, but there's no urgency for her to be better. I believe the whole movie suffers as a result.

It's also worth noting that this movie was nominated for two Academy Awards- Best Makeup and Best Costume Design. That's really impressive- those are both technical categories, but for a comedy like this to be nominated tells you it's something special and out of the ordinary.

The movie features some really funny moments, but it feels like so many of them occur in the first half. I laughed a lot early on. Eventually, as the movie progresses, it starts to feel more predictable, more color-by-numbers. It might even be a few minutes too long, at 1 hour, 52 minutes. The story feels like it hits a pool of molasses 2/3 of the way in. It comes together for the conclusion, but my interest started to wane for a bit there. The movie needed a bit more urgency to move towards its conclusion.

Still, Coming to America is a big win. Comedies are always tricky and for John Landis and company to have created a movie that was so entertaining when it was released and still holds up 30 years later is nothing short of a major success. I had fun with this movie and would highly recommend it.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Nutty Professor, The Golden Child, Beverly Hills Cop