UNDER AFRICAN SKIES (COMING 2 AMERICA)

The world has moved on considerably since John Landis and Eddie Murphy's comedy 'Coming to America' earned $350 million at the box office.

For a start, Hollywood has become a lot more sensitive to the portrayal of women than it was in 1988.

Jokes about naked servant girls washing the Royal penis of Murphy's Prince Akeem every morning seem way out of kilter with what would be acceptable in the #MeToo age.

As more African American filmmakers also come to the fore, there should also be an appetite for more nuanced depictions of Africa onscreen.

After an absence of 33 years from the big screen, however, the fictional African kingdom of Zamunda is back with James Earl Jones' King Jaffe Joffer still on the throne, Murphy's Prince Akeem waiting to take over and Arsenio Hall back as his close aide, Semmi.

As in the original, Murphy and Hall take on multiple roles - relying on make-up, costume and sometimes bizarre hairstyling to pull this feat off.

Shari Headley reprises her role as Akeem's American wife Lisa Joffer, with John Amos returns as her father, the fast food entrepreneur Cleo McDowell and Paul Bates as the servant Oha.

Akeem and Lisa have three daughters - KiKi Layne as the eldest Princess Meeka, Bella Murphy as the second child Princess Omma and Akiley Love as the youngest Princess Tinashe.

All three are handy warriors but Meeka's desire to take over one day from her father as the ruler of Zamunda cannot be realised because he can only hand over to a male heir.

Hall's shaman Baba and King Jaffe, however, reveal Akeem has fathered a son during his sojourn in New York in the first film.

And so Akeem and Semmi return to the Big Apple to find him and bring him back to Zamunda to rule one day.

They return to the barber shop where Murphy's Mr Clarence and his customer Saul trade observations with Hall's fellow barber Morris.

Eventually they track Jermaine Fowler's Lavelle Junson down to his place of work - he's a ticket tout at the Madison Square Garden.

And this leads the Prince to a reunion with Lavelle's sassy mum, Leslie Jones' Mary Junson and his uncle, Tracy Morgan's Uncle Reems who was a father figure to the boy as he grew up. 

Bringing them back to Zamunda, Akeem sets about schooling Lavelle in the ways of a Prince and the dangerous customs that must be undertaken as he prepares to one day rule the kingdom.

However Meeka is hugely pissed off, feeling Lavelle is taking on a role that should really be hers but is forbidden under a dated, sexist regulation.

Lisa is not too pleased either as Mary and Reems treat the Palace as theirs.

Akeem is under pressure too from Wesley Snipes' General Izzy, a military dictator from the neighbouring state of 

Nexdoria to right what he sees as the wrongful treatment of his sister, Vanessa Bell Calloway's Imani who the Prince turned his back on 30 years ago despite a marriage being arranged.

Still humiliated by Akeem's decision to marry Lisa instead, Imani barks like a dog.

Learning Akeem has a son, General Izzy moves quickly to ensure Lavelle will marry his sultry daughter, Teyana Taylor's Bopoto.

But with Lavelle developing feelings for the Royal groomer, Nomzamo Mbatha's Mirembe and unsure about taking over one day as the King of Zamunda, will he last the pace?

'Coming 2 America' reunites Murphy with Craig Brewer with whom he worked two years ago on Netflix's bawdy exploitation movie industry comedy 'Dolemite Is My Name'.

That should be a major plus but 

its big challenge is trying to navigate the changes in public expectations over the past 33 years around what is deemed acceptable humour.

With Kenya Barris, Barry W Baustein and David Sheffield on screenwriting duties, they have ended up concocting a movie that's unfortunately uncomfortable about which route to take.

Brewer and his writers are sensitive to offending any viewers but they also appear to still want to pander to old sexist instincts - particularly with the portrayal of the scantily clad Bopota.

As a consequence, 'Coming 2 America' tries to lazily rehash many of the jokes from the original while infusing the story with a message that young women like Princess Meeka are worthy of power and should not be discriminated against.

Murphy and Hall throw themselves into the sequel with gusto - the former reviving the role of Randy Watson, the singer of the soul band Sexual Chocolate and the latter reprising the shifty New York Pastor Brown and "Extremely Ugly Girl" from the original.

Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, Jermaine Fowler, Nomzamo Mbatha, KiKi Layne, Bella Murphy, Akiley Love, Teyana Taylor and Wesley Snipes also seem to have fun.

Trevor Noah, the host of 'The Daily Show,' pops up as a Zamundan news anchor Totasi Bibinyana.

Shari Headley, John Amos, James Earl Jones, Paul Bates, Vanessa Bell Calloway and Louie Anderson as McDowell's Restaurant's long term employee Maurice also enjoy the chance to revisit their roles.

And if that wasn't enough, Morgan Freeman, Gladys Knight, Salt N Pepa, John Legend, Davido and En Vogue make cameo appearances as themselves.

The fun they all seem to be having, however, just doesn't filter through to the audience as the cast mostly trots through some of the same old jokes from the 1988 film - including a savvy reference to the Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche characters in 'Trading Places' who also popped up in the original.

It would be interesting to get an African perspective on the portrayal of the continent in Brewer's film but it seems regrettably stereotypical.

In much the same way as heavy drinking, repressed, Catholic Church fearing, poetry spouting characters grate in American movies set in Ireland like 'Wild Mountain Thyme', Brewer's depiction of quaint African customs, dictators, witch doctors and warrior princesses also seems a bit lazy and regressive.

It's easy to see why Murphy and Hall might have wished to revisit the adventures of Akeem and Semmi - given the popularity of the original.

But a failure to strike while the iron was hot after its box office success in 1988, the long passage of time over the intervening years and shifting societal attitudes in the West have not been kind to their characters.

What you end up with is a bit of a mess, with Brewer and his writers not quite knowing whether to embrace bad taste or keep on the right side of prevailing attitudes.

'Coming 2 America' simply isn't funny enough and for a comedy that is one hell of a major weakness.

('Coming 2 America' was made available for streaming on Amazon Prime around the world on March 4, 2021)