Direction: Craig Brewer
Country: USA
After the successful collaboration in Dolemite is My Name (2019), director Craig Brewer and actor Eddie Murphy blur the picture with a more-miss-than-hit second installment of Prince Akeem’s adventures in America. This time, the African character not only becomes the sovereign king of Zamunda but also travels to Queens, New York, in search for an illegitimate son left behind without his knowledge. To aggravate the family imbroglio, his son, Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), demands that his tacky mother, Mary (Leslie Jones), move with him to Africa.
The visuals, mounted with great panache, are powerless to compensate the lack of creative inspiration throughout. Neither as titillating nor as funny, the circus is drenched with outdated jokes and predictable situations, and only the music scenes - featuring the female hip-hop duo Salt-N-Pepa, the soul diva Gladys Knight, and a choreographed dance act at the sound of Prince’s “Gett Off” - could stir some enthusiasm.
The finale’s grand party reunites Akeem’s friends from Queens, with Murphy resurrecting the soul man Randy Watson and his Sexual Chocolate band with that retro glow that, working fine in the 1980’s, doesn’t impress anymore.
No one should expect something clever from a sloppy round trip from Zamunda to America that comes relentlessly burdened with clichés of all stripes.
