With just under a month to go until it’s release on Amazon Prime, a new trailer has been released for the upcoming Coming 2 America. Let’s take a look at some of what we learned from the new trailer.
The Film Owns It’s Nostalgia
The trailer literally opens with on screen text stating ‘After 30 years, an icon returns’. And no doubt with these first two trailers showing off that pretty much every important original character is returning, they are playing off our affection for the original.
It’ll be interesting to see how any of the characters have developed, as from what we’ve seen they are keeping things very close to the way we remember them from the original, even down to the characters costumes. It’s amazing to think that Mr Clarence, and the other old men who frequented the barber shop in the original are still there seemingly stuck in a time warp as they appear pretty much the same age as they did before.
Modern References
In the original film there would be jokes where the aforementioned barbershop characters would refer to Prince Akeem as Kunta Kinte who was the historical African man who had been the focus of the book and TV series Roots which was a big cultural reference at the time. In this new trailer we see Akeem referred to as Mufasa, who was the king of Pride Rock in The Lion King. What makes this reference more fun is that Mufasa was voiced by James Earl Jones who played King Jaffe Joffer in both the original Coming to America and this sequel.
We also see Akeem’s home nation of Zamunda referred to Wakanda in this trailer, which plays off the much more recent reference of The Black Panther comic and movie.
We Learn New Plot Points About The Original
The main plot of this sequel seems to focus on Akeem now learning that he fathered a son in America during the events of the first film that we were not aware of. We have a fun exchange between Akeem and Lisa in the trailer where Akeem explains that this conception happened before they had met, and then Lisa brushes it off because she also had slept with people before Akeem. This seems to bother Akeem, and whilst a funny moment, this section does slightly bother me in terms of how it connects to the original.
Without knowing how this sequel will play out yet, when I heard that it would focus on Akeem having a son that he wasn’t aware of I suspected there may be a bait and switch about to happen. If the plot focussed on a scandal where a mother claimed that her son was the child of Prince Akeem, it could have later turned out to actually be the son of Arsenio Hall’s character Semmi. This would play into the events of the first film where Semmi was seen lying to Lisa’s sister to say that he was the Prince and Akeem was his assistant.
With Akeem in the first film seeming so set on finding his perfect bride who he would love it feels slightly off that he will have just slept with a random American woman for a one night stand in this film. Of course, the original film seemed to indicate that both he, and his father would sleep with their bathers, but this isn’t confirmed.
And although it is a fun gag to see Akeem’s reaction when Lisa indicated that she had also had previous lovers, we should remember that in the first film Lisa was going out with Darryl, and even though he was always portrayed as both a bit of a jerk and a doofus, their relationship was obviously long standing enough that Darryl proposed marriage to Lisa…or to her father at least. So whilst it’s very possible that nothing physical had happened between Darryl and Lisa, it feels kinda obvious to assume that it had.
History Repeating
As well as Akeem’s newly discovered son Lavelle, played by Jermaine Fowler, the trailer introduces us to KiKi Lane’s character Princess Meeka, who they mention cannot rule Zamunda as she is female, and that the nation must be ruled by a male. This could go in one of two directions, and the most likely is that just as in the original film King Joffe stated that Akeem couldn’t marry Lisa and then changed his mind at the end – because he was the King, that in this film we will find that Meeka ends up being the next in line if Akeem changes the law by the end.
The other theory is that Meeka could turn out in some way to be the villain of the film if she is jealous that Lavelle appears out of nowhere to be the heir. This feels less likely, but time will tell how things go when the film drops next month.
New Dangers
The trailer shows off Wesley Snipes as General Izzi, who is the baddie of the film, who wants to take over as ruler of Zamunda. We don’t see much of the character other than him using a machine gun to shoot a large painting of Akeem, and also a scenario where Izzi and Akeem are at the same public event and are both fake laughing as if they like each other.
Lots of Comedy Hijinks
The trailer also features lots of quick cuts where we see Lavelle chased by a lion, returns of other characters from the original such as John Amos as Lisa’s dad and a new character played by Eddie Murphy who plans to perform a ceremonial circumcision on Lavelle as part of his initiation to become a prince.
Coming 2 America will release on Amazon Prime on March 5th 2021.
