The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 302 Days to go: 291
Movie #71: Coming to America
The first time Eddie Murphy played multiple characters in a movie, they were all funny as hell. This might be hard to believe if you’re a child of The Klumps or whatever, but it’s true. This was also back when Arsenio Hall was pretty funny in his own right, too, believe it or not.
As far as the story itself goes, Coming to America is pretty schmaltzy: Wealthy prince doesn’t want to be forced into an arranged marriage to a placid, subservient woman he doesn’t love so he goes out in search among the common folk for a worthy bride. Hilarity and romance ensue.
It’s all fairly rote, but the genius and joy of this movie is in the performances, the cameos, the inside jokes and the trappings of Akeem’s (played by Murphy) royal wealth. It’s Murphy’s movie, so he gets the most to do, and since his Prince Akeem is earnest and upstanding, he uses his two My-T-Sharp guys (barber Clarence and patron Saul) and singer Randy Watson (Sexual! Chocolate!) to do the stuff people expect out of him — be loud and obnoxious and argumentative and inappropriate and super-duper funny. Whether he’s aimlessly non-cutting Cuba Gooding Jr’s hair while arguing about how Joe Louis was the greatest boxer ever (he lost to Rocky Marciano, but he was 137 years old at the time, so) or greasily singing that the children are our future, he’s little flashes of delight without making the entire movie about him and his goofy characters. (Honestly, my favorite has always been the splendid hack joke about tasting soup delivered by Saul at the end — and when the movie first came out, the fact that Murphy was Saul was a delightful surprise in and of itself.)
Arsenio Hall is pretty much Murphy’s comedy wingman throughout, as Semmi the servant to Akeem and as barber Morris griping about Cassius Clay, but he’s the most fun as Reverend Brown — especially praising the Miss Black Awareness contestants. The duo work well off each other, foiling Samuel L. Jackson’s robbery attempts and whatnot, however they aren’t all the movie has to offer. John Amos as Cleo McDowell is hilarious explaining all the ways in which his store is not like McDonald’s, all the while sneaking peeks at McDonald’s secret files. James Earl Jones is both regal and blustery and King Jaffe Joffer, but his wife gets the last laugh when she’s all, “I thought you were the king.” (The “bitch” is implied.) There’s Louie Anderson sad-sacking it all over the place, Frankie Faison pimping it up as a landlord, a visual gag about greasy Soul Glo stains on the McDowell’s couch, and a spectacular little callback to Murphy’s Trading Places when the homeless Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) are the recipients of Akeem’s discarded “pocket change.” That last one is my favorite, favorite thing.
What really interests me, though, are the rhythms of Zamunda — the fictional kingdom over which Akeem’s family reigns. There are the rose bearers, of course, but who cleans those up? Is there a royal rose sweeper? Also, I’m not sure I would like to be woken up by a live orchestra, but I think it’s great how Akeem is lying in his bed perfectly still and peacefully, as if a prince would ever sleep in a rumpled bundle of sheets with his hand on his junk and one leg thrown out from under the covers. There are royal butt-wipers, who are not shown but who I assume are men, just as the royal tooth-brusher and throat-gargler and mouth-wiper are. But the royal bathers for Akeem are flawless, naked women — “The royal penis is clean.” — so I’m really hoping Lisa (Shari Headley) gets her some fine-looking vagina-scrubbers once she settles into castle life. After all, if you can’t have some perfect naked man cleansing your vagina for you, what’s the point of even being a princess? (Y’all may never look at Ariel and Jasmine the same way again.)
What it all boils down to is that Coming to America is a classic R-rated comedy (that isn’t even all that R, really, except for some shouted “fucks” — the rest could easily pass at PG-13) that I couldn’t even get the oldest girl to even feign interest in. Kids just aren’t right these days, that’s all there is to it.
Viable Option 