Review by C.J. Bunce
Only a year ago I called director Craig Brewer’s 2019 biopic Dolemite is My Name–the theatrical return of Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes from Netflix–the big Oscar miss of the year. It begged the question: When was the last time Murphy and Snipes were this good, and why did they ever leave the top spot on marquees of movie houses everywhere? Brewer is back again with Murphy and Snipes, this time in a sequel to director John Landis’s quirky 1988 comedy Coming to America, a two-time Oscar nominee for costumes and one of Rick Baker’s makeup nominations for turning Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall into a host of characters, a box office success that gained favor over the years thanks to video rental stores, and today it’s a nostalgic trip back to the 1980s. The sequel Coming 2 America is a big surprise: a big budget marvel not from Netflix but Amazon Studios, a thoughtful, funny, surprisingly deep sequel we didn’t know we wanted, and a result that is even better than the original. More than “just another sequel,” it’s a fairy tale like The Princess Diaries, a bit A Knight’s Tale, a bit Crazy Rich Asians, and a worthy sequel in concept and art design to Black Panther. It’s also a celebration of the career and characters of Eddie Murphy, and it expands to be a celebration of black culture and comedic films via dozens of great Easter eggs. In short, it’s one of the best direct-to-television movies since studios started moving from movie houses to home screens.
