"Coming To/2 America" (1988 and 2021)

The biggest new movie release of this week is Eddie Murphy's "Coming 2 America" the sequel to his 1988 hit "Coming To America."  Right off the bat, I could not honestly remember whether or not I had seen the original, so last night, I found it on Amazon Prime and watched this now 33 year old movie.

Just to refresh your memory, Murphy plays Crown Prince Akeem, heir to the throne of the African nation of Zamunda.   Not feeling so keen on an arranged marriage, Murphy and Simmi, his chief aide-de-camp (Arsenio Hall) go to America to, according to his father, the King (James Earl Jones), sow his royal oats, but for Akeem, to see if he can find true love.  They land in a totally shitty section of Queens in New York City, and  classic fish-out-of-water comedy hijinks ensue.

Predictably, Akeem finds true love with an American girl, Lisa,  and they live happily ever after, but not without leaping over hurdles along the way, including Lisa's current boyfriend and her own father.  It's a sweet story made memorable by Murphy's and Hall's performances, which include them playing dual roles as older barbers in a Queens barber shop, where they constantly argue about, among other things, who was greater, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, or Cassius Clay ("I'm callin' him the name his Momma gave him!").

This will give you an idea as to just how long ago 1988 was.  In the opening credits, receiving 16th (I went back and counted) and final billing was a young actor named Samuel L. Jackson.  Yep, long before "Pulp Fiction" and Capitol One commercials, Jackson had a bit role in this Eddie Murphy comedy.  He played an armed robber in a fast food joint who screamed obscenities throughout, so, essentially, he played "Samuel L. Jackson" in this one.

Now it is thirty-three years later, the king is on his death bed and Akeem is about to become king.  Akeem and Lisa remain happily married and have three daughters and therein lies a problem: Zamundan law requires that only a male can succeed the king.  

It is learned (don't ask how) that on that long ago trip to America, in a coupling of which he has no memory (again, don't ask, but it was all Simmi's fault), Akeem fathered a son.  So, back to America for Akeem and Simmi to find "the bastard", groom him to become the next crown prince, and thus avoid a war with the country next door to Zamundia, which is called, amazingly enough, Nexdoria.

More fish-out-of-water stuff with Akeem's son Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), his Uncle Reem (Tracey Morgan), and in a really funny role, Leslie Jones as Lavellle's mother, who, among other things, puts Queen Lisa back in touch with her Queens home-girl roots.  Oh, and the guys from the barber shop are still there.  In fact, it is the one place in Queens that hasn't changed after 33 years of gentrification in the old neighborhood.

Like the original, this sequel ends up being a rather sweet happily ever after story, and this new one has some gorgeous costuming and some dazzling musical numbers, including a return visit from that famous Queens band, Sexual Chocolate.  There are also a couple of fun cameos that I will not mention here so as not to spoil the fun for you.

If you are like me, and either didn't see the original "Coming To America" or have no memory of it, you really should see it before you see "Coming 2 America", because there are constant references to plot points and comic bits from the original, and every character from the original is also in this one.  A lot of what gets said and what happens in the new one will be lost on you if haven't seen or don't remember the original.

I liked both movies and give each of them Three Grandstander Stars.

"Dolomite Is My Name"

Back in the early 1970's, Rudy Ray Moore was an aspiring singer/actor/stand-up comedian living on the fringes - the very far fringes - of show business, trying to scratch out a living in Los Angeles.  Things were so bad, the disc jockey in a record store where Moore worked as an assistant manager wouldn't even play his records.

One day, Moore got the idea to take the ribald poems and stories passed on by the winos and junkies who inhabited his neighborhood, expand upon them and incorporate them into his stand-up act.  Wah-lah, Moore became a hit in the black club scene in LA, cut some hit comedy albums, traveled the Chitlin' Circuit throughout the south, and then became a really big hit in the Blaxploitation movies of the seventies that featured the character he created, Dolomite.  (Early rap and hip-hop artists credit Moore for inspiring them with his comedy tales told in rhyme and accompanied by the funkadelic music of the era.)

Moore's story is told in the Netflix produced movie, "Dolomite Is My Name" that stars Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore.  This is a pretty good movie, and Murphy, who is now 58 years old (talk about the passage of time!) and who has been absent from the movies for far too long, is positively terrific in this movie.  I have heard and read that there is some talk of an Academy Award nomination for Murphy, and it would not be undeserved.  It is certainly one of the better performances that I have seen this year.

The movie is funny, and, in its own way a bit touching, and worth seeing if only to take in Murphy's performance, but a word of warning.  The movie is rated R, and it is a strong R, for the crude and vulgar language throughout.   If a sentence of dialog did not include the F-word in it, it probably did include the M-F-word.  Sometimes this bothers me, but in the context of the story being told in "Dolomite Is My Name", I didn't have a problem with it.  However, I get it that this may mean that this movie is not for everyone.  There, you've been warned.

Two and one-half Stars from The Grandstander.

By the way, Eddie Murphy is set to host "Saturday Night Live" tomorrow night on NBC, no doubt as a means to promote this movie.  It will be his first time back on the show that made him a star since 1984.  It will be enough to get me back to watching SNL, something that I have not done regularly, well, since Eddie Murphy was a cast member.