Coming 2 America (2021)
Directed by Craig Brewer
Prince Akeem Joffer is set to become King of Zamunda when he discovers he has a son he never knew about in America – a street savvy Queens native named Lavelle. Honoring his royal father's dying wish to groom this son as the crown prince, Akeem and Semmi set off to America once again.
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6 films that influenced Coming 2 America
What critics say influenced Coming 2 America
No spoilers here, but viewers should prepare themselves for a flashback sequence that uses wildly disconcerting de-aging CGI for Murphy and Hall, the results of which fall somewhere between those Tom Cruise deepfakes and the uncanny valley of Tom Hanks in The Polar Express .
The reductiveness of the Izzi character (his cartoon army training with "Dance Dance Revolution" machines and marching in formation like a heavily-armed drumline, his notions of masculinity and hereditary rights), I guess I'm baffled as to how this is still a celebration of a kind of Black Panther afro-exceptionalism narrative.
I’ve always been fascinated by the ways in which the idea of identity sifts into his work, from Memento ’s concern with our memories or our actions defining who we are to Bruce Wayne’s obsession with Batman and what he means to Gotham to the shifting identities at the heart of The Prestige to the macro, nation-state level of Dunkirk ’s question about what Great Britain is and what might replace it in the future.
But at least new films like Mad Max: Fury Road and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle attempt to reinvent and redefine (I am trying very hard not to say “reboot”) their stories and characters for the current moment.
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2020 saw two different long-awaited sequels appear — Bad Boys for Life and Bill & Ted Face the Music — each acknowledging the past while finding clear ways to move the story forward.
Moviegoers didn’t realize it at the time, but the original “Coming to America” marked the beginning of a game-changing collaboration between Murphy and makeup artist Rick Baker that would later make the full-body transformations of “The Nutty Professor” and “Norbit” possible.