Coming to America

Coming to America follows Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem, the heir to the throne of a fictional African country, as he arrives in New York City hoping to find a wife, with complications ensuing as Akeem and faithful cohort Semmi (Arsenio Hall) are forced to take low-paying jobs at a fast-food restaurant. Filmmaker John Landis has infused Coming to America with a tremendously affable and consistently hilarious sensibility that proves impossible to resist, with the movie’s compulsively watchable atmosphere heightened by the efforts of an almost uniformly charismatic cast – with Murphy’s appealing turn as the film’s hero matched by a top-notch roster of periphery performers (including James Earl Jones, John Amos, and Eriq La Salle). It doesn’t hurt, either, that scripters David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein have packed the narrative with a number of laugh-out-loud funny gags and set pieces, with the movie’s heavy emphasis on Akeem and Semmi’s fish-out-of-water exploits certainly perpetuating the irresistibly comic vibe. There is, however, little doubt that Coming to America loses some momentum as it progresses into its flabby midsection, as Landis offers up a handful of padded-out subplots (eg Akeem’s crush on a beautiful coworker) and flat-out needless sequences (eg it’s difficult to justify or derive much entertainment out of Murphy’s turn as a terrible soul singer). The film does rebound for an effective and uplifting final stretch, however, which ultimately does confirm Coming to America‘s place as a better-than-average comedy and a worthy followup to Murphy and Landis’ first collaboration, Trading Places.

*** out of ****