Genre Grandeur – Coming to America (1988) – Encore Review – MovieRob

For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – Films about Royalty, here’s a review of The King’s Speech (2010) by Me.

Thanks again to J-Dub of Dubsism for choosing this month’s genre.

Next month’s genre has been chosen by Emily of The Flapper Dame and we will be reviewing our favorite Wedding Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of June by sending them to emswedding@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Emily!

Let’s see what I thought of this movie:

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“Hey, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. But now… now I’m washing lettuce. Soon I’ll be on fries; then the grill. In a year or two, I’ll make assistant manager, and that’s when the big bucks start rolling in.” – Maurice

Number of Times Seen – Countless times (Theater, cable, video, DVD, 4 April 2013 and 29 May 2019)

Link to original review – Here

Brief Synopsis – A young African Prince travels to New York in order to find himself a bride after rejecting the match made by his parents in his home country.

My Take on it – This is a movie that I recall seeing in the theater back when it came out in 1988 and laughed the whole way through.

Edie Murphy really knows how to create some great characters and is able to take a story like this to new heights due to his performance.

The story is enjoyable on so many levels the whole way through.

Murphy is superb in the title role and finds a way for us to believe his character’s personality; someone who has been waited upon all his life, but now wants to find a bride who is his equal and is a free thinker.

The film has a great message that works quite well and they found a way to use multiple paths to try and let this message of choosing a spouse based on love, understanding and mutual respect instead of via money or tradition.

This film is filled with lots of cameos of friends and colleagues of Murphy and they are all hilarious to watch

The fact that Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall both play multiple characters also adds a lot of fun to this film since it shows their true comic talent in playing some very eccentric and outlandish characters along the way.

John Landis does a great job directing this film and I loved the minor connection to a previous film of his that adds so much life to both this and that movie’s storyline.

Bottom Line – Excellent film that works on multiple levels. Murphy is superb in the title role and really makes us believe his character’s personality as someone who has been pampered all of his life and now wishes to find a bride who is also a free thinker. The message in this film works really well and I liked the numerous uses of trying to show why people should choose a spouse based on love, understand and mutual respect instead of just money or prestige. The cameos in this film are amazing and the added use of Murphy and co-star Hall as a number of characters shows their true comedic talent along the way. Landis does a nice job directing this film and I have always loved the way that he even makes some small connections to a previous movie of his with Murphy. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – After the make-up and clothing was applied for the Jewish character Saul, Eddie Murphy wanted to test the make-up and costume out. He got a golf cart and drove from one studio department to another in Paramount Studios. He would get out of the cart and say in his regular voice, “Hi. I’m Eddie Murphy.” No one believed him. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10) (upgrade from original review)