Coming 2 America: All 4 Returning Eddie Murphy Characters Explained

Coming 2 America’s release means the return of several Eddie Murphy characters, but who has been confirmed and what could they be up to in the sequel?

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With Coming 2 America, one of Eddie Murphy’s best characters will return to screens in 2021, but given how many he played in the original, it’s possible that could be a number of options. The belated sequel will see Murphy’s Prince Akeem coming back to the States on a journey to find the son and heir he didn’t know existed as he stands on the brink of inheriting the kingdom of Zamunda from his father King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones). And along with him and Coming 2 America’s other returning actors will come each of the characters Murphy played in the original.

Murphy has gone on to pull the multiple character gimmick several times over the years since Coming To America debuted, with the likes of The Nutty Professor and Norbit ranking high in the prosthetic stakes if not always in critical acclaim. But the 1988 classic, in which he starred with Arsenio Hall (as his personal aide Semmi and a number of other characters) was the original and is still the best. In it, he mastered the art of playing the straight man against himself, offering a fairly sober fish-out-of-water performance as the Prince while also letting his more outrageous comic side out in other disguises.

Though Coming 2 America won’t have the R-rating of the original, the long-awaited sequel, which is coming to Amazon Prime after a couple of delays pushed it out of 2020 entirely, should still carry the first film’s spirit. Some of the jokes of the original may have dated a little, but the time capsule nostalgia of the ’80s classic should make for even more opportunities for humor. That Akeem lives in his own timeless bubble and can explore 2020s America through eyes that have been cut off for thirty years. Borat’s fish-out-of-water comedy did well twice and so should Eddie Murphy’s. If his returning characters work as well once more, that will be guaranteed.

Prince Akeem Joffer

Eddie Murphy’s most prominent role, as it was in the original, is Prince Akeem Joffer, son and heir of James Earl Jones’ King of Zamunda. Having taken a whistle-stop tour of pre-1990 Queens in the first movie, he’s back to find his heir, Lavelle, played by Jermaine Fowler. Judging by his solid gold plane, his country is still as wealthy and his return will see him experiencing how much the US has changed since he first came to find his bride.

Clarence

One of the first film’s most popular characters, Clarence the barber runs the My-T-Sharp barber shop, which has clearly still been doing a roaring trade in iconic hair product, Soul Glo. As in the first movie, Clarence will no doubt become the sage advisor of Akeem and Semmi as they return to find the next heir to Zamunda. He was, after all, the reason Akeem met Lisa McDowell so he has a strong track record. And if age adds wisdom, Clarence has another thirty years under his belt, even if he doesn’t quite look it.

Saul

Along with playing such proudly Black characters, Murphy changed things up dramatically by donning lots of ageing make-up to play Saul, the elderly Jewish man who sits in the barbers opposite Clarence and banters with him and Sweets. Notably, Saul already looks around 70 years old at the least in the first film, and now thirty years on, he looks in pretty much the same shape in Coming 2 America. By the look of it, he’s not moved a great deal fro, the first movie, which speaks to the enduring important of community barbershops – something Pixar’s Soul also picked up on.

Randy Watson

Possibly the most surprising reappearance in Coming 2 America is Jackson Heights’ own Randy Watson, the lead singer of local soul legends (at least in Randy’s imagination) Sexual Chocolate. Appearing only briefly in the original at the Black Awareness Rally, Randy threatened to steal the entire movie (alongside Hall’s James Brown-riffing Reverend Brown), becoming increasingly annoyed at the audiences antipathy to his performance of “The Greatest Love of All”. It will be particularly intriguing to see how Watson and his band has moved on, considering the trailer seems to suggest they haven’t at all, which is precisely where the humor lies. There may even be some new Eddie Murphy characters along with the new actors adding to Coming 2 America for an added bonus.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/coming-2-america-eddie-murphy-returning-characters-explained/