widad el zein

Coming to America is a treasured piece of my childhood filled with comedic genius, amazing characters, and a beautiful story. If Coming to America 2 was supposed to be a tribute to the first, which is the only logical reason I can think of that will lead them to make a 'sequel' 30 years later, they did not do a good job. For one, there were too many characters to begin with. I was thrilled to see most of the cast from the first movie, and would have liked them to stick with them alone, and only introduce a few new characters instead of having every possible modern day black actor. The overflow of characters doesn't allow you to bond with any of them, the original characters seem worn out and the new characters lack background for you to understand them. What I would have liked is a focus on the original cast, giving them proper roles that allow you to connect with them again the way you would with the first movie. You can't include every black actor in one movie to make up up for the lack of diversity in the industry. I have nothing but respect for modern day actors, all I'm saying is they deserve movies of their own. Coming to America is for the original cast, and casting anyone else would only create an entirely new movie. Another thing is the storyline that I can think of no better word to describe it except 'complete mess'. It feels like two movies patched together, constant throwbacks the first movie held together by a completely different and irrelevant plot. Akeem's son is the main character of his own story while Akeem is the main character of his own, separate movie, that are not harmonized together. They are not co-main characters, but independent main characters. Lastly, (although I can go on forever with this), the original characters were absolutely butchered! they were shamed and belittled. Instead of including the original cast as sideshows to the main event, they were supposed to be the main event! The reason I watched this sequel to see my favorite characters, I wanted to see how they and their lives have changed over the years. Instead, I got to see bits of them that seemed completely irrelevant to this whole new movie they were making and tried to call 'a sequel' It's a damn shame what they did to that dog.