{"id":11287,"date":"2021-03-12T09:00:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwaslikemagic.com\/?p=11287"},"modified":"2026-04-20T10:43:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:43:43","slug":"coming-to-america-1988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/coming-to-america-1988\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Coming to America’ (1988) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On his 21st birthday, Prince Akeem from Zamunda is introduced to his bride-to-be, a woman whose sole purpose is to please him. Realizing she has no interests or mind of her own, Akeem decides he wants to find his true love elsewhere. A woman who will challenge him in every way. He tells his father he needs to sow his “royal oats” before marriage, and the King agrees, unaware of Akeem’s true intentions. Akeem and his servant, Semmi, travel to Queens in New York, where Akeem wants to live as destitute as possible to find a woman who loves him for who he is, not for his royal status or money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akeem soon falls for Lisa McDowell, the daughter of Cleo McDowell, owner of a McDonald ‘s-esque fast-food chain, McDowell’s. Cleo also happens to be Akeem and Semmi’s boss after they get a job at the fast-food restaurant. Despite Lisa having a boyfriend, Akeem wants to win her heart. Shenanigans ensue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve seen Coming to America<\/em> before, but the only things I really remembered from it were the theme song and\u00a0Paul<\/strong> Bates’s<\/strong> hilarious falsetto song announcing Imani Izzi (Vanessa Bell<\/strong>) as Akeem’s betrothed. But the husband and I decided to watch it again in preparation for Coming 2 America<\/a><\/em>, which was released this year – that review is coming soon. (ETA 2021: C2A review updated<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoyed Coming to America<\/em> quite a bit, and it holds up remarkably well for being over 30 years old. This seemed to be when Eddie Murphy<\/strong> was Eddie Murphy. Bitingly funny and unapologetic about it. Before the string of terrible movies like Norbit, Pluto Nash<\/em>, and I Spy<\/em>, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murphy is a talented comic, and I loved his various roles in this movie, including Sexual Chocolate frontman Randy Watson and the hilarious barber Clarence. Arsenio Hall<\/a><\/strong> is just as funny as Semmi, Clarence’s colleague Morris, and the disgustingly sexist Reverend Brown. While the movie is essentially a romantic comedy, I thought the bright spots stemmed from Murphy and Hall’s excellent chemistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akeem embraces American culture with a smile and open arms. Semmi hates it and wants to go back to living in luxury. Even their approaches to finding beautiful women are different. Semmi is all for the physical experience, but Akeem craves more. And he finds that in Lisa. Shari Headley<\/strong> and Murphy also have some lovely chemistry. She’s a strong-willed woman, which makes you wonder what she’s doing with Darryl (Eriq La Salle<\/strong>), a preppy doofus whose hair is encased in Soul Glo hair products (owned by his family). Lisa and Akeem come together in surprisingly sweet ways, and I can’t help but wonder if Murphy has ever played a more likable character than Akeem Joffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming to America<\/em> is R-rated humor at its best. Clever and raunchy without being too<\/em> raunchy. There are the obvious physical gags and jokes combined expertly with the more subtle humor that might fly under the radar if you’re not paying enough attention. I enjoy John Landis quite a bit as a director, but sometimes I forget he was behind the camera here. This movie felt like Eddie Murphy was at the helm in every way, and that’s not necessarily bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming to America<\/em> is a predictable but hilarious rom-com, largely thanks to Murphy and Hall delivering two delightful performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched:<\/strong> 03\/05\/2021
Notable Song<\/strong>: To Be Loved by Jackie Wilson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating:<\/strong><\/div>
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Coming to America: An extremely pampered African prince travels to Queens, New York, and goes undercover to find a wife that he can respect for her intelligence and strong will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[392,1],"tags":[1070,1806,2585,1807,1808,1809,1810,1811,1812,1813,3656,1814,1815],"class_list":["post-11287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-c","category-reviews","tag-1070","tag-arsenio-hall","tag-coming-to-america","tag-eddie-murphy","tag-eriq-la-salle","tag-james-earl-jones","tag-john-amos","tag-john-landis","tag-madge-sinclair","tag-paul-bates","tag-4-stars","tag-samuel-l-jackson","tag-shari-headley"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11287"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81888,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11287\/revisions\/81888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}