Coming to America (1988) – 4K Ultra HD + Digital
Please note that all framegrabs are from the 1080p version
***/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, John Amos
screenplay by David Sheffield & Barry W. Blaustein
directed by John Landis
by Bill Chambers When I interviewed the great documentarian Steve James of Hoop Dreams fame, he asked me if I’d ever seen Coming to America, and I didn’t know quite how to answer him. There was a time, during my adolescence in the mid-to-late ’80s, when not seeing the latest Eddie Murphy movie would’ve put a serious crimp in my social life–when the extremely homophobic routines of Eddie Murphy “Delirious” (a.k.a. Eddie Murphy: Comedian, which my friend Joel gave to me on vinyl for my 12th birthday) constituted the lingua franca of my peers, for worse or for worse. This was also the age of PayTV and home video, when it was not uncommon to watch a film you liked over and over again until you practically fused with it; I liked Coming to America. I liked it, and lots of kids my age liked it, I suspect, because it made us feel like adults with its titties and swears but basically coddled us with a plot out of Disney and a laid-back vibe to match. I’d soured on it in the years since, partly out of fear it was a low-key minstrel show. I’m still not sure that it isn’t, but anyway, in answer to James’s question, I said “yep.”