The movie was a little meh. It was pleasantly filled in quippy jokes and nostalgia fodder from not one but many pop culture references to Eddie Murphy's golden age self-produced classics, the 1980s, The Lion King and so on and forth, but the story was overall a little stale, predictible and BET-worthy. I however noted that this movie was equally Eddie Murphy's self-criticizing of his own career life and shortcomings, exactly like he did with the 1996 comedy hit Nutty Professor.
I wasn't a peculiar fan of LaVelle (gosh, what a horrible name) . He's somewhat of an adorable character... yet he has so many shortcomings as an unimpressive, dull, unambitious, ill-mannered, lowly, petulant, unoriginal 30 years old momma's boy of morganastic commoner, than very little of his father's noble, pure-hearted-yet-tradition-killing antiheroics shone through his meager exploits. He's more pathetic than relatable. If Akeem disturbed forever the multicentury traditions and ethos of an African realm by spousing a foreign, (bourgeois) common class daughter of a multimillionaire restaurant owner and social worker of her own by act of star-crossed love (and stemmed 35 years of neverending debate amid black circles about lingering colourism against black female characters in African American movies by having the chaste-yet-witty "high yellow" upper class Queens native Lisa McDowell winning over her own sulfurid ebony-skinned sister Patricia, the lower class emotionally stunted black female population of Queens, and the divinely dull, tradition-minded ebony-skinned Voizilander princess and bride-to-be Imani Izzi) against ordered marriages, the choice of LaVelle to express-spouse an highly opportunistic, impertinent, irreverencious servantmaid when both his paternal legacy, father's nation and sisters faced imminent war and the risk of death was nome only aberrant, but an egotic act.
And yes we were right about Leslie Jones and Steve Morgan who would be the downsides of the movie. ? Seriously Leslie...another male-on-female rape joke? Akeem get drug-raped by that gorilla-faced Cardi Bitch and no one batted am eye about it???
I was at least somewhat relieved that the actual protagonist called out both Lisa and the viewers for what Mary and Semmni did to him for it was. Nigga, Semmni's head should be already topped off from his body and rolling ove the grass if that shit happened in reality. Niggas has ONE duty: serve and protect the Crown Prince... and he let him get sullied, stripped away from his questionable virginity (remember the royal bathmaids?) and drug-raped by a foreign woman-- and thus risking to seriously compromise diplomatic relationships between an influent African nation and the U.S.A. , IN FULL COLD WAR???!!!
6/10.