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Coming to America Movie Review

Coming to America is a 1988 romantic comedy film directed by John Landis and starring Eddie Murphy. It’s a charming, but cliched flick.

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“The royal penis is clean,

your Highness“

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On his 21st birthday, African Prince Akeem has to marry a woman he has never seen. Determined to break tradition, he goes to America to look for one he can truly love and respect. Eddie Murphy usually starred in comedies in his heyday, but this is basically a romantic comedy and thus it’s a weaker, less interesting effort.

There is a lot to love here, but all of that comes from the first act as the film stumbles later on. The beginning is excellent as those scenes in Zamunda are funny and highly entertaining. It was a great, interesting premise for a comedy, but unfortunately the movie then became a typical rom-com with a cliched plot of a man looking for true love and not telling his romantic partner that he is a prince. It’s basically the reverse ‘Aladdin’, but done much less interesting.

As for the characters, I really liked Prince Akeem and I found Murphy’s performance to be terrific. He’s so much fun and he’s charming throughout. I also liked his parents, and his girlfriend is such a wonderful person. The scenes between the two are romantic for sure, but again nothing that we haven’t seen countless times before.

Coming to America’s biggest problem is its pacing which is simply horrible. The first act is again great, but the second act is where the movie becomes so boring as it’s incredibly prolonged and needlessly so. A romantic comedy should not be over an hour and a half in length, and this simplistic premise certainly did not need that long runtime.

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As for the third act, it’s rushed to the point of feeling ridiculously abrupt and hasty. The whole movie is a mess owing to John Landis’ very odd, problematic direction. The dialogue is fine and some of the humor is admittedly pretty good, but the film’s storyline is so standard that the movie never could reach anything substantive nor anything truly memorable.

Coming to America benefits from likable characters, a strong Eddie Murphy turn and a funny first act, but the second act is needlessly extended and the third one is an abrupt mess. The script is very cliched as well. It’s a shame that the first act presented so much comedy promise, and then it got wasted on such a dull rom-com development that has been done countless times before.