His hyperactive sweeping does not go unnoticed by the apple of his eye, but the comely young woman is romantically involved with a rich and glossy pretty boy (Eric LaSalle).Īkeem is, nonetheless, smitten. Akeem lands an entry-level job at the fast-fooder, and quickly falls in love with the working woman. The plot itself is pathetic: In America, Akeem spots a feisty and beautiful young woman (Shari Headly) at a neighborhood rally and tracks her down to her father’s business, a copycat McDonald’s. Blaustein’s mushier-than-white-bread script milks only the most obvious laughs from the outlandish situation - what we get is homogenized Eddie Murphy, drained of his kinetic comic charm and smiling sass. Yes, there are some crazy pieces crammed into America - Murphy and Hall in their multi-roles do a running black barbershop bit that is good and nuts - but this comedy is generally tame and sappy. The screenplay is marooned in sitcomland, and the juicy, urban neighborhood stuff itself is also scraped clean. Worse even than the Queens locale and the opportunity to turn Murphy loose in Manhattan is, well, the fact that good old Queens itself is slighted. The wild and rife potential for social satire is completely dropped at the start. Beverly Hills, would have been a hilarious, escalating standoff. By using this humdrum setting as the comic core, Murphy is stripped of his opportunity to bounce off of a worthy cultural opponent: Murphy vs. Coming to America misses its vast potential by languishing in a locale that should have been a throwaway laugh, or, at most, a short interlude. The sharp but unworldly king selects Queens as a natural site to select a bride - he’s looking for a queen, get it? Although that grungy borough may be inherently funny (if you don’t have to live there), the site selection peaks as a one-line verbal gag. For Akeem’s royal lackey and trusted sidekick (Arsenio Hall), the trip looks like a great “40 days of fornication.” His father, the King (James Earl Jones), believes his hormonal-hyper son wants to sow some wild oats and agrees to let Akeem travel to New York for 40 days. Such renegade royal behavior is, not surprisingly, dismissed as youthful restlessness. To his credit, the up-and-coming monarch won’t settle for a trained wife. No deadbeat dupe, Akeem has a dream: He wants to fall in love with a woman who loves him for what he is, not for who he is. Even by the standards of his palatial life, the day is a special one for the pampered prince - it’s his 21st birthday, and a curvaceous bride (Vanessa Bell) has been chosen for him. In the remote African kingdom, Prince Akeem (Murphy) rises in rose-petaled splendor to string music and caresses of his beautiful, scantily clad bath-women. The introductory scenes do not belie America‘s vast promise. From this lofty and sparkling beginning, the movie is downhill all the way. The movie peaks early, as blazing stars soar above the Paramount insignia mountain: A pulsating, heaving rendition of “Mbube (Wimoweh)” rumbles over the opening credits, as the camera moves in over the lush jungle to the ostentatious royal palace of Zamunda. Coming to America is the filmic equivalent of using a Maserati to go to the corner grocery store - Murphy’s colossal comic gifts and Landis’ countercultural sensibilities are largely wasted, never pushed to the floor in this idling, curbed comedy.
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