Hey everyone welcome back to Silver Screen Spectacle! With the release of Coming 2 America this weekend, I got around to the first film. I have seen snippets of this movie on network tv over the years but I didn’t remember any of it. Released in 1988, the film was a massive box office hit and pushed Eddie Murphy even further up as a comedy star. However, the downside of a lot of old comedies is sometimes they don’t hold up today, so here are my thoughts on the original film.
This was a really fun film. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it early on as the start had laughs but not as consistent as I expected. Once the movie got going though, I laughed a lot. Eddie Murphy is hilarious in this movie. I really need to watch more of his old comedies as he almost always makes me laugh. I also forget that Murphy is just a great actor as he elevates the emotional scenes as well. Arsenio Hall is also just delightfully playing off Murphy. Their chemistry is electric and is the primary reason this movie is so much fun. John Amos and Shari Headley both do outstanding in their supporting roles. James Earl Jones is a lot of fun as Murphy’s dad I’m just used to only hearing his voice not seeing him.
John Landis did a good job directing. There’s nothing spectacular about it, but it’s well done and definitely above what most movies like this have. The script honestly surprised me in multiple ways. First, I loved that despite the crude humor, the overall story is actually sweet and kind of like a fairy tale. I also did not expect this movie to have effective dramatic moments that it invested me in. This is however a comedy, so the most important thing is the fact that this made me laugh a lot. I only cringed at a handful of jokes and mostly, the humor rarely missed. Now every joke wasn’t a gut buster, but there were plenty of good laughs and a few huge ones.
The Sam Jackson cameo scene, the basketball scene, and any scene involving the barbershop guys were probably the three scenes that made me laugh the hardest. Sam Jackson’s cameo got me so good because I had no clue he was in this movie. The whole basketball sequence is funny but Lisa’s sister trying to each into Murphy’s pants made me lose it laughing as well as the two dudes that recognized him. The barbershop scenes had me on the floor every single time just at the sheer randomness of the dialogue.
Overall, while not cinematic art I had a lot of fun with Coming to America, and I can easily see myself occasionally resisting this film. So, guys, that’s it for this week’s Wait! How Did I Miss This? As always, if you enjoyed it, give it a share and check back Friday for my review of the sequel.
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