Coming 2 America

Directed by Craig Brewer, Coming 2 America follows Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem as he discovers that he has an illigitimate son (Jermaine Fowler’s Lavelle) in New York City. Filmmaker Brewer, working from a script by Kenya Barris, Barry W. Blaustein, and David Sheffield, delivers a mostly watchable yet thoroughly erratic sequel that benefits from its raft of appealing, charismatic performances, as Murphy turns in charismatic work that, in addition to compensating for the sporadic lulls in the narrative, is heightened by the efforts of an eclectic roster of periphery players – including James Earl Jones, Colin Jost, Leslie Jones, and Wesley Snipes. (The latter, cast as an African general, is particularly entertaining here.) It’s disappointing to note, then, that Coming 2 America eventually progresses into a sluggish and palpably hit-and-miss midsection that wreaks havoc on its momentum, with the repetitive bent of this portion of the proceedings ensuring that the entire second act, for the most part, feels as though it could’ve been condensed into a single montage. (And it’s clear, as well, that Brewer’s oddly bland visual sensibilities exacerbate the picture’s various deficiencies.) The film admittedly recovers for a lively and satisfying climactic stretch that ensures it ends on a positive note, at least, which ultimately does cement Coming 2 America‘s place as a just-good-enough followup that could (and should) have been so much better.

**1/2 out of ****