COMING 2 AMERICA
Crude Content and Uneven Execution
What You Need To Know
COMING 2 AMERICA stars comic actor Eddie Murphy as a newly crowned African king who needs a male heir to carry on his family’s traditions and travels back to New York to find the son he never knew he had and welcome him into the royal family. Also streaming on Amazon Prime, COMING 2 AMERICA is marred by too much crude dialogue and foul language, but it has some clean funny moments and heartwarming drama celebrating family, doing the right thing, finding true love, and giving equal treatment to daughters and sons.
Prince Akeem of the African country of Zamunda has a problem. His father is on the verge of dying, but Akeem doesn’t have a male heir to succeed him on the throne. He only has three daughters. General Iziz, the military leader of a neighboring country, threatens to kill Akeem and take over his country unless Akeem’s eldest daughter, Meeka, marries the general’s son.
Just in the nick of time, Prince Akeem, now the King, finds out he has a 31-year-old son, Lavelle, living in New York City, where Akeem had a one-night stand before he found his beloved wife, Lisa. Now, the general wants Akeem’s son to marry the general’s daughter.
So, King Akeem, and his right-hand man, Semmi, return to New York to meet Lavelle, Lavelle’s crazy mom, Mary, and Lavelle’s Uncle Reem, who’s been like a father to the boy. Realizing the riches they could potentially inherit as part of a royal family, they return to Zamunda with King Akeem. However, Lavelle must pass a test in order to qualify for becoming Prince of Zamunda.
Naturally, of course, some comical complications ensue.
COMING 2 AMERICA is marred by too much crude dialogue and foul language. In addition, the comedy is rather hit or miss. For example, some of the movie’s comical concepts are clever but the execution is not as consistently funny as they should be. That said, the movie does have some clean funny moments and appealing characters. It also has some touching, heartwarming drama celebrating family, positive father-child relationships, doing the right thing, finding true love, and giving equal treatment to daughters and sons. There are, however, some feminist elements, though they aren’t radical or extreme. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for Eddie Murphy’s COMING 2 AMERICA.
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Strong mixed pagan worldview in a comedy about an African king needing a male heir so he isn’t dethroned and killed by a rival leader of another country with lots of crude pagan content and foul language, but also some strong moral elements celebrating family, positive father-child relationships, doing the right thing, finding true love, and giving equal treatment to daughters and sons, with some talk about honoring one’s country and traditions, but also some Romantic, feminist ideas about bringing positive change and empowering females, plus light Christian symbols in one scene during a church wedding to a flashy black preacher’s storefront church, but later a woman jokes that the church is not a like a house of God, but more like a “crack house of God”
Foul Language
About 76 obscenities (including many uses of the “b” word for the lead character’s illegitimate son from a one-night stand), one GD in an outtake during the end credits, three light OMGs, two bleeped “f” words, clinical terms for sex organs are used several times, some borderline vulgarities, a lion passes gas in one scene, and a really old African religious leader spits a couple times to show his disdain for a younger middle-aged man
Violence
Some light comical and action violence includes a king’s long-lost son must cut some whiskers off a lion, and he’s chased by the lion to a trap that the would-be prince has set for the lion, lion tries to swat at the would-be prince in a bamboo cage for the big cat, people pretend to circumcise a young man, but it’s only a piece of meat, the young man faints to the floor after the prank is revealed, a military leader of an adjacent country repeatedly threatens to kill the king of another country if the king’s eldest daughter or son don’t marry one of his children, king practices stick fighting with his three daughters, king’s three daughters fight off the military leader of the neighboring country and his entourage who try to take over their father’s palace, eldest daughter is knocked down during the fight, and younger girl hits a male soldier in the crotch with a stick, man kicks another man, and a scenes of mock comical choking
Sex
Implied fornication results in a pregnancy, and the father reconnects with the son he didn’t know he had 30 years later, flippant references to being a prostitute in the past, many innuendoes about sex, some sensual dancing, dancer sings a song with three or so sexual references such as a reference to having a one-night stand, another song has sexual innuendoes and euphemisms, a band is called “Sexual Chocolate” and the singer mentions those words several times in a rendition of “We Are Family,” euphemistic references to sexual organs, and an older woman has a male attendant in her bath
Nudity
Upper male nudity in several scenes, scenes with female cleavage, and an implied nude man is attending an older woman in her fancy bath, but no explicit nudity shown
Alcohol Use
Alcohol use and drunkenness
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
No smoking, but some drug references regarding a one-night stand 30 years ago (includes woman blows marijuana smoke into man’s face in a flashback), a woman makes a joke about crack cocaine, and a reference about being treated for an oxycontin addiction;
Miscellaneous Immorality
A trick is pulled on a young man, some rude behavior, and a racist comment but rebuked.
