Coming to America (1988) – 3/5

Great fun at times, close to must-see territory

„Coming to America“ is an American English-language movie from 1988, so this one has its 35th anniversary this year already, but I saw it on the big screen for another reason, namely the occasion was a film retrospective dealing with Black American movies and as this one has Eddie Murphy in the lead, the literally defining Black actor of the 1980s and one of the biggest Black actors in film history you can say, it is no surprise at all that the film was shown. Let’s look a little bit more at the basics here now: The film comes pretty close to the two-hour mark, which is unusually long for a (mostly) comedy movie from the 1980s. The director is John Landis, who was in his 30s back then and interestingly had a comeback not too long ago when he started directing a new cartoon series featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger. This one here is definitely one of Landis‘ most known movies, maybe right behind „The Blues Brothers“. By the way, here in Germany this movie is more known under the title that translates „The Prince of Zamunda“, perhaps because they were struggling a bit with nicely getting through the American-themed title. And anyway, hasn’t there been a sequel not too long ago? I guess that one did not go too well, but it is okay and I don’t think it hurt the old movie whatsoever. The room during my screening was nicely packed for sure and everybody was laughing enough without a doubt. One of the trio of writers here is David Sheffield and I see he returned for said sequel and worked quite a bit with Eddie Murphy during his not super prolific career. Also worked on the Police Academy series. Something similar can be said about Barry W. Blaustein (interesting name). There are even the same films included, so I guess he and Sheffield were a team and I kinda like it if they get back the people who also were in charge of writing or working on the old films and this is surely true for Sheffield and Blaustein.

The third and final writer is none other than Murphy himself. He did it all here, writer, producer and lead actor. Impressive. Somehow, I kinda like the guy and wanna see more of his stuff. His character in this film was a little younger than himself, which was no big surprise, but I wonder why they included the age anyway. Obviously, Murphy was not 21 anymore, but he kinda was when he had his breakthrough in America a few years earlier. At that point in 1988 he was already a big star, so the connection to being a prince felt accurate sort of and his servant there was as much of an aide as was the actor who played him. I am talking about Arsenio Hall of course. He had his own show immediately after this movie, but then also not a huge career. Also returned for the recent sequel of course. And he had this one moment when he spat out some drink because of some absurdity he hears that comes from a woman they are talking to or basically interviewing in their quest to find the right girl for the prince. That has become a meme that is still so popular 35 years later and it is all Hall this time and not Murphy. By the way, I loved the one they were talking to during the same sequence, the one who says something how she does not date people who are driving a certain car brand or so. Stunning. Wonder who she is and what happened to her since then. The actress I mean. Anyway, the impact Murphy had during this time is also shown by the fact that the film scored two Oscar nominations, which is for films with such heavy focus on comedy not a common achievement at all. One was for the costume design, the other was for the makeup and you can surely say that all the scenes from Zamunda early on played a huge role in that. This made it even more impressive as the vast majority of the film took place in America and the nominations surely did not come for those parts. Strong promotion you can also say that they succeeded with getting the film nominated there. With the makeup, Murphy’s and Hall’s other characters might have helped too.

The two nominees could not be any more different. Rick Baker is an icon from his branch while for Deborah Nadoolman it ended up being the only nomination. Still she worked on an Indiana Jones film, which is not too shabby. As for Baker, I will not mention all his achievements, otherwise the character limit is reached already. But kinda telling that for a film as Black as this one, two Whites scored the Academy Award nominations. Murphy, Hall and Landis too scored some attention too on smaller occasions. I am a bit surprised the movie did not get in at the Golden Globe Awards, but it did win the Golden Screen here in my country, which means that really many people went to watch it on the big screen. In general, you will find many people here that worked on this film, no matter if in front of or behind the camera that are luckily still with us. The one that does stand out there is Emmy winner Madge Sinclair who died at a not so old age from cancer, and she played the protagonist’s mother. But James Earl Jones is in his 90s now and still alive and he also returned for the sequel. Very cool. Towards the end of this old film here, it was also shown that his character is not super strict when he found a way to get his son the woman he really wants. This was one of the funniest moments there by the way when at the very end, Murphy’s character asks her if he should still give it all up for her and her reaction was hilarious. It is definitely not a Murphy one-man show we have here, but most cast members contribute some pretty good humor and solid quality. This includes Hall’s character of course too on quite a few occasions, even if, shame on me, I mistook him for Grace Jones in his first scene when they were fighting there. Just as I felt on at least one occasion that Murphy indeed looks a bit like Lionel Richie. Just a random side note.

Paul Bates was good too and I also really adored the old men from the barber shop and their shenanigans. They were hilarious in every scene they had, no matter if they were discussing boxing icons and who is the greatest or whatever else. In one of the barber shop scenes, apparently Cuba Gooding Jr. Was also in this film, but I did not recognize him. He achieved what Murphy wanted so bad, namely win the Oscar. Another actor not too happy about losing the Oscar who turned out really big after this movie here is Samuel L. Jackson. Pretty cool to see him in here at such a young age and his scene perfectly fit the approach he took with Tarantino afterwards on so many occasions. I mean literally this could have been his character from „Pulp Fiction“ at a young age. There is no way you will miss him in here. Also one telling scene in terms of how the main character starts winning over his girl’s heart. She is played by the stunning Shari Headley and I already said her best moment was maybe towards the end there where she made everybody in the room laugh. I am still a bit baffled she did not have a bigger career. As a final note about the cast, it can be said that Calvin Lockhart, who worked with David Lynch a few times, and John Amos and Louie Anderson (always easy to identify) are also in this film. With the exception of Amos, hopefully also when you read this a little later, they are all gone. Lockhart and Anderson. One comedic inclusion from relatively early that stayed in my mind was the scene in which the woman chosen to marry the prince was presented to us and him and there we have a chubby girl who is part oof the ceremony and it was funny when she said something that she will present said woman now and Murphy’s character was immediately happy that it was not her herself who he was supposed to marry. I am sure if a film with a scene like this got made today, people would get crazy about alleged fat-shaming and deem it offensive and it is pretty sad. Back then, they were (luckily) getting away with stuff like this still and that is why we can learn a bit or actually a lot from comedy from the 1980s. Political correctness has become such a disgusting obstacle when it comes to having a fun time. But yeah, makes it easy to appreciate scenes like the one I just mentioned.

I also kinda wonder what the film would have turned out if they coin early on had shown the other side. Too bad they did not make an alternate version that showed us the Miami take on events, but oh well. Maybe it would be an approach to take if they ever reboot. That joke how America is so big and then he mentions only Miami and New York also made many people in the room laugh. Me not so much, but I found it funny enough on many other occasions too and the question here is not if I give this film a thumbs-up, which I certainly do, but if this is a good great film. As of now, I am still going with the former and thus give it a 3/5, but if I maybe rewatch it some years from now, I might change my opinion as I was close to being really euphoric about the outcome here. These scenes when random African animals showed up there (elephants, giraffes and others) was also hilarious. I kinda worry some may see this as racist now too. I think this is pretty much it then. Finally, as a reference to what I stated earlier, it can also be said that this is really a pretty progressive movie overall with how Murphy’s character is depicted as he is very interested in dating a girl who has her own views, thinks for herself etc. So a strong female character is what he is looking for and this is nothing that was the rule around that time in movies, but Headley portrays one here. Of course, it was never in doubt the two would be getting together in the end, but this does not take anything away from the fun factor. Okay, maybe the scene down there in the subway was a bit exaggerated in terms of drama, but the old lady was still cool. Headley was of course also back for the recent sequel. All the comedic inclusions and I could elaborate on a dozen more scenes make it worth seeing. The snow was also cool of course. That is all.