Coming to America-Please Don't Take The Trip
Eddie Murphy has had some of the most profitable movies of all-time for one reason: the charisma of Eddie Murphy. Few of the films in which Eddie Murphy acted as the lead have possessed devastatingly funny scripts. Usually it was the likability and energy of Murphy that made his films what they were and that is something that can be said about few comedic actors. Coming to America is not a particularly strong story or screenplay, but there are sporadic laughs and some good performances by Murphy who plays a couple of different roles.
In Coming to America Murphy plays an African prince who, well, comes to America looking for a bride and some situational comedy ensues. Sadly, here is another American film centering itself on royalty but that is another issue altogether. Its a funny film but not a gut-splitter, and you might be left wondering why Coming to America made somewhere over $250 million dollars. The answer, again is simply the star power of Eddie Murphy. Had the film starred Murphy's sidekick, the cosmically annoying Arsenio Hall, the box-office take would have probably been 75% lower, at least.
In short, there are some films that just hit the big ticket numbers because of the film's star power and we continue to see this even today with dreadful, dreadful flicks like Oceans 12, which only pulled good numbers because it was littered with famous names. Although the days of instant success simply because the film has a big name seems to be on the wane, only time will tell.
Coming to America is not particularly original or creative and it is a weird pick for director John Landis. But Landis has shown some remarkably poor judgment for quite some time, such as Blues Brothers 2000-at least it was released in 2000, or Deer Woman in 2005, which he co-wrote with his son Max Landis, which was freaky bad, freaky bad. Bottom line, if you like Eddie Murphy, you've probably already seen Coming to America, and if you're not a Murphy fan, just skip it, nothing to see here.
Story D+ (Pretty lame stuff really. Some good acting performances by James Earl Jones, but not worth seeing.)
Acting C- (Coming to America has decent enough acting, but the film can't recover from the script.)
Visuals C (Like most of Landis' films, coming to America lacks effort.)
Originality/Innovation D-
Enjoyability Grade D+
Home Theater/HD Factor C
Overall Grade D
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