When Akeem who has recently been crowned King finds out that he has a long-lost son back in the United States in Queens after his first thirty years ago, he finds him and brings him to be his unexpected heir due to the current rules around only males being able to rule, much to the dismay of his eldest daughter who had spent her whole life preparing.
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I had only recently watched Coming to America for the first time, probably encouraged by knowing that this sequel was coming out. The first I found just ok, so I wasn't really holding too much hope for this film but I have to say that it was more bad than good.
Adding in a son that he did not know about in order to go back to America and then bringing Lavelle back with him to Africa and preparing him for his new life where he would go on to become King. Obviously this was all a big shock and his mother Mary was adamant about coming along with him, and quite frankly she was probably one of the more amusing characters. The best character though had to be General Izzi with his over the top nature and the way he entered each time was the funniest thing about the film.
As it turned out though after Lavelle agreed to get married to General Izzi's daughter and unite the countries once and for all, he shows that Akeem really is his father when he falls in love with someone else and no longer wants to partake in the arranged marriage. So basically the plot of the first film is just rehashed in this one, which given the quality of the cast it could have been so much more that what we actually ended up with.
The worst thing about it was that I realised after about 15/20 minutes maybe even ten minutes that this film was not going to be something I was going to enjoy and even like. But I persisted to see if it got any better and it quite frankly managed to keep the below average tone going for the whole running time, so I guess that was impressive right?
Wesley Snipes was the best performance for me with his over the top nature and as I already mentioned the way General Izzi enters is truly the funniest and best moments in the whole film. That was the only thing that made me laugh in this comedy. Jermaine Fowler deserved better as his character really could have been interesting. The same goes for KiKi Layne who I would have rather known a lot more about her character Meeka which was much more interesting yet was brushed off as more of a sub-plot.
