Movie Review:Coming 2 America

The late Nigerian filmmaker, Eddie Ugbomah, once famously claimed that he got Eddie Murphy to apologize when he pointed out to him the denigrating portrayal of Africa/Africans in 1988’s Coming to America.

Judging from how incredibly denigrating the stereotypes in the sequel, Coming 2 America are, suffice it to say that Murphy’s alleged apology to Ugbomah was as heartfelt as any attempt in this sequel to subvert Hollywood’s age-long stereotype misrepresentation of Africa/Africans in movies.

In Hollywood movies, Africa is always depicted with shots of the Serengeti with loin-clothed Africans spotting face paint and wielding spears cavorting with hordes of wild animals in the background.

But in reality, chances are the average American in America is more likely to have seen a lion in real life than the average African living in Africa.

Three decades after Coming to America, there has been as much change in Hollywood’s portrayal of Africa/Africans as there has been in life in the fictional African country of Zamunda, where the sequel’s story is largely set.

The gaudy costumes have been amped up to Wakandan ridiculousness and the ultra-unrealistic accents were all over the place hitting ridiculous notes.

In a year an African woman emerged Director-General of the World Trade Organization, girl power in Zamunda is represented by a trio of princesses wielding sticks and besting their father and some utterly ridiculous dictator and his goons in martial fights.

The sorry excuse for a sequel would have us believe that a drugged Prince Akeem had sired an heir during his first trip to America and the knowledge of this bastard heir was kept from him by his family.

A quick trip to America ferries the heir back to Zamunda but not before a constellation of African American entertainment stars make convoluted fan-service cameo appearances that Nollywood (specifically, Ebonylife Films), with half the budget, would have pulled off with a less annoying flourish.

To make up for the lack of originality in the storyline, we are treated to clips from the original movie with past and present depiction of characters whose character developments over the years beggars belief.

A couple of examples come to mind. Firstly, Murphy’s Prince Akeem, who in the original appeared wise and a change maker came across as a caricature of what he represented in the original movie.

Secondly, Shari Headley’s Lisa who was all prim and proper in the original movie gets influenced to get drunk and throughout the movie loses the spunk that endeared her Lisa to viewers in the first movie.

But what would an African American comedy movie be without the stereotype loudness and curse/sexual innuendo-laden over-performance of, arguably its biggest purveyors, Leslie Jones as the bastard heir’s mother and Tracy Morgan as his uncle.

The argument could be made that being a comedy, Coming 2 America is allowed the latitude to take liberties with believability and accurate depiction of Africa/Africans and should be enjoyed just for the laughs.

That argument, however, falls flat when you consider that not only was its humour dated but it wasn’t really funny and in a time when African Americans have consistently railed against the stereotype representation and misrepresentation of blacks in Hollywood movies, how could such a stellar cast of African American stars lend their talents to such coonish depiction of blacks in a movie?

It becomes even more disturbing when you observe that this denigrating misrepresentation of Africa/Africans accords with the average African American’s perception of his ancestral African heritage.

White Hollywood may have started this negative culture of misrepresentation but Black Hollywood in movies like the original Coming to America, Black Panther and now, Coming 2 America, has put it on overdrive.

If you ever wonder why Oscar is so white, sometimes; you may need to look no further than the gaudy, largely unfunny and willfully ignorant kaleidoscope of supposedly comedic cinematic inaccurate depictions that is Coming 2 America. 3/10