Back in 1988, after huge success with the first two Beverly Hills Cop films and a semi-bomb in "The Golden Child", Eddie Murphy returned to fine comic form with the mega-hit COMING TO AMERICA.
Murphy stars as African price Hakeem, who wants no part of his arranged marriage and wants to spread his wings with a visit to the USA.
With best friend and assistant Semmi (a very young Arsenio Hall) in tow, our Prince soon lands in Queens, loses all his luggage and somehow retains his regal dignity as he takes a job at a McDonalds wannabe fast food joint.
Murphy is at his best here, showing a softer side for the first time on film and creating a character you really care about, who is searching for true love far from home.
Murphy and Hall also bust out in another four roles each within the film. Beneath heavy make-up that turns him into everything from an elderly barber to an old Jewish man, Murphy is hilarious and sows the seeds for what would become a multi-part, gender bending pattern that would emerge again years later in the Nutty Professor films.
James Earl Jones gets plenty of laughs as Hakeem's dad, simply by never breaking his serious demeanor and John Amos is great as the father of the girl in America that Hakeem inevitably falls for, much to his parent's horror.
This is a fun and funny movie from start to finish, with plenty of one-liners that plenty of us are still quoting today.
Look fast for Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy reprising their roles from "Trading Places" and Cuba Gooding Jr as a customer in the barber shop.
Paula Abdul did the choreography for the royal engagement and wedding sequences and it is pretty damn good (and over-the-top hilarious).
Coming to America holds up really well as an eighties comedy classic and gets a laugh filled A.
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