Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Coming to America

My kids wanted to see Coming to America over the weekend, so we rented it at the Family Video.




They didn't watch it.

Probably just as well, as I wouldn't have wanted my daughter watching it.

Anyway, I figured I'd watch it last night, before I had to return it to the store. Verdict: Not really as funny as I'd remembered it. Possibly, as Her Majesty suggests, we're not as easily amused as we age.

But, there was a scene that was really just a tip of the hat, that I had totally forgotten, in which the über-rich Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) hands a fast food bag full of cash to a pair of panhandlers in Queens, NY. The panhandlers turn out to be...Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) from Trading Places. Just a cameo, but probably the best scene in the movie.

The best performance was probably Madge Sinclair (Nurse Ernestine Shoop from Trapper John M.D.) as Queen Aoleon of Zamunda.

I don't know that this movie originated the concept, but Murphy plays about four roles, and Arsenio Hall does about three. This later became standard, but gimmicky, fare for Murphy and Martin Lawrence.

2 comments:

todd said...

Yeah, I met Dr. Martin Luther King in 1962 in Memphis, Tennessee. I walkin' down the street minding my own business, just walking on. Feelin' good. I walk around the corner, a man walk up, hit me in my chest, right. I fall on the ground, right. And I look up and it's Dr. Martin Luther King. I said 'Dr. King?' and he said 'Ooops, I thought you were some body else.'

an Donalbane said...

While I think the whole notion of Eddie Murphy playing several roles became kinda silly, I did enjoy his depiction, in the barbershop scenes, of Saul the Jewish guy.