Eddie murphy kids in coming 2 america11/23/2023 ![]() ![]() When Akeem is told that his illegitimate son was conceived during his journey to Queens, he protests that this is impossible: “I did not sow my royal oats,” he insists, referencing his father’s original, cheerful instructions for the trip.Occasionally, however, the writers go to the trouble of not just quoting themselves, but adding and/or winking at their original ideas: When King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones) comes to Queens in the first film, Saul rubs his lion-skin sash and exclaims, “This is beautiful, what is that, velvet?” The last line of Coming 2 America is Saul asking Baba, of his robes, “Hey, what is this, velvet?”.And when his son meets General Izzi’s daughter (Teyana Taylor), they have the conversation Akeem and Imani did: “What do you like?” “Whatever you like,” etc. ![]() Izzi’s sister Imani (Vanessa Bell Calloway) is still jumping on one leg and barking like a dog, as Akeem commanded her to at the beginning of the first film.“Defend yourself, you sweat from a baboon’s balls”: said by Semmi to Akeem in their sparring session in the first film, and to General Izzi (Wesley Snipes) during the big fight in this one.So we get an after-credits scene with Saul here as well, alongside Hall’s new secondary character, Baba the witch doctor.īut they don’t just copy the structure of the first film several lines of dialogue are repeated, often verbatim. The first film ended with a memorable (pre-Marvel!) post-credits scene of Saul (the elderly Jewish barbershop kibitzer, played by Murphy under layers of makeup) telling his favorite joke.And once again, the furious king follows his son back to Queens to track him down and put a stop to this foolishness - but of course, when his son explains that he has to follow his heart, he understands.But that sequence sets up the replication of the original film’s central romantic conflict: Just like his father, Lavelle dodges a politically expedient arranged marriage with a neighboring princess to pursue his genuine attraction to a more “common” girl, Mirembe ( Nomzamo Mbatha).(Also, Paula Abdul didn’t choreograph this one.) In one of the major structural deviations, the big palace song-and-dance number shows up around the 40-minute mark rather than early on.(Legend reappears in the end credits to sing Oha’s 1988 showstopper “She’s Your Queen.”) After Akeem (now King Akeem) and Semmi decide to journey to Queens, we again hear the title song as they fly in - but sung by John Legend.Shortly thereafter, Akeem engages in a spirited round of stick-fighting - this time with his daughters rather than Semmi (Arsenio Hall).“It is our anniversary,” he exclaims happily, echoing his line reading of “It is my birthday” in the original film’s opening. They then hurry to their parents, Akeem and Lisa (Shari Headley), to wish them a happy anniversary.We land on the palace of Zamunda, where three rose bearers hurry to attend to the royal offspring - but this time, rather than Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), it’s his three daughters.The film again opens by pushing past the iconic Paramount mountain to reveal the African nation of Zamunda behind it, the camera gliding and rolling through the fields and valleys as we hear a version of “Mbube,” the original version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”.Ebiri notes that “it doesn’t feel like the filmmakers wrote a new script so much as they just … rewrote the old script,” and he’s not wrong in terms of beat-for-beat replication, we’re getting into Hangover Part II territory here: Blaustein and David Sheffield (and new collaborators Kenya Barris and Justin Kanew) also go hard for the superfans, stuffing the picture with not only flashbacks to the original, but copious callbacks to its gags - bits that, as Bilge Ebiri puts it, “will make literally zero sense to anyone who hasn’t seen the first film fairly recently.” So if you haven’t, here’s your cheat sheet. The makers of Coming 2 America try to do both simultaneously, inserting the new character of Lavelle, the “bastard prince” (Jermaine Fowler), to provide an under-30 protagonist, as in such “ legacyquels” as Creed and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Thirty-three years have passed since the release of Coming to America - it’s as old as Rihanna, Zac Efron, Blake Lively, and Kendrick Lamar - so making a sequel would seem a tricky bit of business, requiring a high-wire act of satisfying fans of the original while bringing in younger viewers who might not know the earlier film at all. Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy star in Coming 2 America. ![]()
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