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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

The Return of the King: Eddie Murphy Rules in Coming 2 America

Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in Coming 2 America

It’s really impossible to overstate how huge a star Eddie Murphy was in the 1980s. At the beginning of the decade, he single-handedly saved Saturday Night Live after the original cast—and the audience—had moved on. He made his big-screen debut in 1982’s 48 Hours; two years later, he was so big he turned down Ghostbusters for Beverly Hills Cop, which became the highest grossing comedy in history.

In 1988, Murphy, by then fully in control of his career, made Coming to America. The big-budget comedy ($36 million, or $81 million in 2021 dollars) was based on a character he created, Prince Akeem Joffer, the scion of a fictional African country who bucks the tradition of arranged marriage and comes to Queens in search of a liberated American woman to be an equal partner. It was directed by John Landis, the pop cinema genius behind The Blues Brothers and the heady Murphy vehicle, Trading Places. Landis perfected the hangout movie, where plot was secondary to gags and character moments to help the audience identify with the movie star, and created worlds you want to live in. Modern superhero movies take a lot from Landis’ approach. The film was a huge success, earning the 2021 equivalent of $790 million.

Prince Akeem returns to Queens in Coming 2 America.

Eventually, Murphy, with no more worlds to conquer, lost interest in stardom and drifted off to raise his ten children. In 2019, Murphy mounted a comeback with the help of ace screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Dolemite is My Name gave him the opportunity to play his idol, underground comedy legend Rudy Ray Moore. Directed by Memphian Craig Brewer, Dolemite was universally praised, and generated Oscar buzz. Most importantly, working with Brewer on material he cared about seemed to rejuvenate the reluctant superstar.

The Return of the King: Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem ascends to the throne in Coming 2 America.

Exactly why Coming to America became an enduring classic, and what that says about the culture, is too big a subject to tackle in a newspaper review. (Come to my TED Talk!) One clue can be found in Black Panther. The vision of Zamunda, Prince Akeem’s fully functioning, wealthy African nation state, owes a lot to the comic book Wakanda. Murphy and Brewer recognize this, and use the long-brewing sequel as an opportunity to throw a hangout party in the aspirational African paradise. Most of the original cast is back, first and foremost Arsenio Hall, whose turn as Semmi, Prince Akeem’s put-upon sidekick, made him a star. The Murphy-Hall comic duo drove Coming to America. They played multiple roles, all of which clicked perfectly. Coming 2 America takes those characters out for a victory lap. The wisecracking old guys in the barber shop are now very old, but still cutting heads. Hall’s Reverend Brown is still saving souls on discount in Queens, and he now has a Zamundan counterpart in a shaman named Baba. And you’ll be pleased to hear Murphy’s unknown soul sensation Randy Watson is still fronting Sexual Chocolate.

Murphy (right) in costume as the old Jewish guy in the barber shop.

Brewer’s filmmaking superpower is that he can get a good performance out of a fire plug. Coming 2 America is a star vehicle, but all Brewer films are ensemble works, because he pays equal attention to the bit players. As Queen Lisa, Shari Headley picks up with Murphy like they’ve been married for 30 years. John Amos, a TV legend from Good Times pours his heart into a scene with his regal son-in-law. James Earl Jones is magnificent as King Joffe, whose premature funeral provides the cameo-heavy, musical set piece — Brewer’s forte.

Teyana Taylor and Wesley Snipes in Coming 2 America.

First among the newcomers in the sprawling cast is Wesley Snipes, who steals the show every time he cakewalks into the palace as General Izzi, Akeem’s rival from the nation of Nexdoria. SNL alums Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan practically ooze charisma as the new American cousins. Jermaine Fowler as Lavelle, the bastard son Akeem must retrieve from Queens, has the unenviable job of retracing Akeem’s arc from the original, choosing a romance with the peasant Mirembe (Nomzamo Mbatha) over an arranged marriage with Nexdorian princess Bopoto (Teyana Taylor).

Wesley Snipes, Jermaine Fowler, and Leslie Jones show off Ruth E. Carter’s costume design.

Brewer is not a comedy director, but armed with Ruth E. Carter, arguably the greatest working costume designer, and Empire shooter Joe Williams, he creates a lavish Zamundan background for his stars to bust out the schtick. Murphy mainstreamed raunchy Black comedy, but much of what passed for edgy in 1988 looks crassly sexist now, even in the context of the ostensibly feminist elements of the story. The sequel tries to strike a more inclusive tone by teaching Akeem the same lessons about the drawbacks of the patriarchy his father learned during the Reagan era.

Shari Headley, Arsenio Hall, and Eddie Murphy

Coming 2 America lacks the depth of Dolemite is My Name, but it never aspires to reach it. This is a pop confection whose only goal is to entertain as broadly as possible. Everyone from Murphy on down look like they’re having the time of their lives, and when you visit Zamunda, you may find their happiness infectious.

Coming 2 America is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The Return of the King: Eddie Murphy Rules in Coming 2 America

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Watch the First Trailer for Coming 2 America

Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy reprise their roles as Semmi and Prince Akeem in Coming 2 America.

If the COVID-19 pandemic never happened, you would be gearing up to watch Coming 2 America in the theater right now. The sequel to director John Landis’ hit 1988 comedy Coming to America was a long time coming. But it took the pairing of Eddie Murphy and Memphis director Craig Brewer to make it happen. 2019’s Dolemite is My Name, in which Brewer directed Murphy the legendary Blaxpoitation star, was a major hit for Netflix. Murphy had such a good experience with Brewer in the big chair he finally agreed to do the follow-up to his most beloved film.

Shooting was almost done on what was planned to be Paramount’s big Christmas release when the pandemic hit last March. Filming was eventually completed in late summer, but with the theatrical business still in pandemic limbo, Paramount decided to sell the project to Amazon for a whopping $125 million. It will bow on Amazon Prime March 5, 2021.

Coming 2 America stars Murphy as Prince Hakeem, the scion of the African kingdom of Zemunda, (which now looks a lot like Wakanda without the super-science.) He has lived happily ever after with his love interest from the original, Lisa (Shari Headly). The couple have three children, all daughters, and that’s a problem in patriarchal Zamunda. King Joffee (James Earl Jones) is dying, and Hakeem is set to take the throne. The King wants to solve the problem of the lack of a male heir by marrying Hakeem’s oldest daughter Meeka (KiKi Layne) to the son of Wesley Snipes, who plays the warlord of a neighboring nation. But the succession plans are thrown into chaos when it is discovered that Hakeem does, in fact, have a male heir: Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), a child he fathered the first time he came to America. Now, he and his trusted manservant Semmi (Arsenio Hall) must return to the states to find Lavelle’s mother, played by SNL comedian Leslie Jones. Murphy and Hall again play multiple roles, which means yes, Sexual Chocolate is happening! Peep the first trailer:

Watch the First Trailer for Coming 2 America

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Film Features Film/TV

Ghostbusters

Why remake Ghostbusters?

A perfect movie is a rare beast. To make every shot work, every actor deliver, to land every script beat requires skill, vision, and luck. The 1984 Ghostbusters originated in the fevered brain of Dan Aykroyd while he was in the middle of one of comedy’s greatest hot streaks. The OG SNL star conceived of three movies to feature him and his best friend, John Belushi: The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and Spies Like Us. Just as the unlikely success of The Blues Brothers gave the pair the run of Hollywood, Belushi OD’d. Aykroyd and Caddyshack director Harold Ramis retooled Ghostbusters‘ insane first draft, which featured psychedelic scenes of astrally projecting Ghostbusters fighting hordes of interdimensional spectres, as a more grounded ensemble movie set in New York City.

In 1984, all the pieces fell together for producer/director Ivan Reitman to make the quintessential action comedy. Aykroyd and Ramis created a pair of indelible geek icons in the schlubby Ray Stantz and the Spock-like Egon Spengler. Sigourney Weaver did duel duty as symphony musician Dana Barrett and gatekeeper spirit Zuul, playing off of Rick Moranis as a geeky accountant possessed by the Keymaster Vinz Clortho. The role of Winston Zeddmore was originally offered to Eddie Murphy, but when he turned it down in favor of Beverly Hills Cop, Ernie Hudson stepped into the thankless role of audience surrogate. Looking back on Ghostbusters from the perspective of 2016, it’s clear that Bill Murray is the key to the picture’s success. His Lothario con man turned paranormal investigator Peter Venkman is a perfectly pitched performance worthy of Chaplin, Keaton, or Cleese.

Remaking Ghostbusters seemed a fool’s errand. Reitman captured lightning in a bottle, an artifact of a certain moment when all the players were at the top of their game, by mixing ’80s horror beats with Second City gonzo yucks. Even the core creative team couldn’t reproduce the magic. Remember Ghostbusters II? Of course not. You might as well try to remake Casablanca.

This was the task set before director Paul Feig. In a move that upset a vocal hoard of internet man-babies, the creator of Freaks and Geeks upped the already impossible difficulty level by gender-swapping the characters. Well, I’m here to tell you that the Men’s Rights movement picked the wrong hill to die on.

Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon don the proton packs in Paul Feig’s remake of Ghostbusters.

Feig surmised that the secret of Ghostbusters was in the chemistry, and the director of Bridesmaids knows funny women. The team of Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones is even more finely balanced than Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson. Wiig’s Erin Gilbert, a former paranormal investigator trying to get tenure as a physics professor at straight-laced Columbia University, can’t touch the crystalline genius of Murray, but she’s a good fit for this version. McCarthy hones her wild talent with discipline and precision, turning in the best performance of her career as Abby, the Ray Stantz analog. Feig and Parks and Recreation writer Katie Dippold’s script gives Jones’ character, Patty, a New York transit employee who gets sucked into the Ghostbusters’ world, more to do than Hudson, and the film is all the better for it. The most perverse casting choice is Chris Hemsworth in a hybrid of Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts’ cynical receptionist; Thor rises to the occasion by whipping out previously unseen comedy chops. But it’s McKinnon who slyly steals the show. McKinnon reworks Ramis with a brash physicality. Geeks are cool now, but McKinnon, who takes her look from the animated version of Egon, avoids the autistic minstrel show approach epitomized by The Big Bang Theory and wrings more depth out of renegade techie Holtzmann than the script provides.

As long as Feig and Dippold follow Aykroyd and Ramis’ beats, the movie hums along, but when they attempt to graft on a parody of The Avengers climax in place of the intimate confrontation with Gozer the Destructor, the film spins out of control. Still, speaking as an old school Ghostbusters fan, this remake is better than it has any right to be. In 1984, Ghostbusters was a standout in a quality field that included Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Purple Rain, and fellow action comedy classics Gremlins and Romancing the Stone. 2016’s Ghostbusters comes as a sip of water in a historic drought. Feig has pulled off the impossible by successfully reworking an unlikely masterpiece, and everyone involved deserves major kudos.

But seriously, let’s not try to remake Casablanca, OK?

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1354

Check-fil-A

Talk about a business model with legs … and thighs … and wings. Last week’s Board of Adjustment meeting found board members reviewing a variance request by what appears to be a payday loan establishment that offers customers a little something extra. And by “a little something extra,” We mean, of course, chicken.

The aptly named Chicken & Checks is planned for Elvis Presley Boulevard. So you can cash your payday loan check and buy some chicken with it? Or do you get a wing plate and biscuit with every check cashed? No matter how you slice it, that’s Memphis to the bone. May God and Jack Pirtle have mercy on our souls.

Taxkreig

This tax preparation business leaflet caught your Pesky Fly’s eye because an unfortunately placed shadow makes the superhero mascot look like a cartoon Hitler in tights.

Just Ghostbusted

Memphis native and SNL cast member Leslie Jones has been tapped to star in the gender-flipped reboot of Ghostbusters. We can only hope her presence will bring shooting to Memphis, because no giant statue deserves to be brought to terrifying life half as much as the Statue of Liberation at World Overcomers Church, aka “Freedom Jesus.”