I don’t think it’s as good as the original, but that’s a high bar to clear. I’m enjoying it!
I enjoyed what I could, but Amazon locked up on us twice last night. Once when attempting to start the movie, and then again about an hour or so through. We’ll finish it up tonight. I did feel like the trailer ruined most of the surprises in there.
Oof. I wish Amazon had locked up on me. Unfortunately, it played continuously, without interruption.
-Tom
I thought this was pretty good! At least, it was as good as it could have been, and better than I expected. It was a pleasant way to spend an evening.
Obviously, a lot of it was victory lap rehash stuff, but there was enough new stuff sprinkled in that it didn’t feel as slavish a reproduction of the original as these things sometimes are. The overall arc and plot of this kind of movie is obvious from the beginning, so I didn’t care about that. There were jokes, and there was absurd fashion/dance set pieces, and the jokes were sometimes funny and the costumes were fabulous.
The actual plot felt a little rushed and perfunctory, but there wasn’t a ton of dead weight that you could easily excise. If this was a Tyler Perry movie, there would be like 30 minutes of tedious screeching that could easily be removed (I’m looking at you, Hattie, in every recent Madea film), but there weren’t any long stretches that here that could obviously be removed. Like, you could shorten the 5 minutes of drumline performance, but like, if you’re going to do that, why are you even here?
Obviously, it’s nothing like as clever or incisive as young Eddie Murphy, but there are bits that show that Murphy still has at least a couple of thoughts about race. And while they pulled back before it really got going, the existence of Nextdoria was surprisingly dark.
Also, like, repeating jokes from one of the greatest comedies ever made once every 30 years is, well, it’s hard for me to get too upset about milking that. It isn’t Coming To America, but it’s a pleasant modern comedy. It’s the kind of Mike Schur thing where it seems like they had a lot of fun making it, and that’s good enough for me right now.
My favorite thing about the great 80s comedies are the clockwork nature of the scripts, where everything fits together just perfectly to tie all the various plots together. This doesn’t have that, but it also isn’t the sloppy improv mess that so many modern comedies are. It’s wonderfully competent.
Also, while the politics aren’t saying anything especially progressive, can I just say how relieved I am that Eddie Murphy seems to be on the “not-a-monster” side of the sexual abuse spectrum? My wife noted that bits of this movie are basically “Eddie Murphy has daughters now”, and while it’s nothing exciting, it’s kind of a relief.
I thought it was perfectly wholesome entertainment. I learned a lot about life and love.
Seriously though, just seeing Murphy and Hall together again was worth the price of admission.
I didn’t care for it much, mostly because it wasn’t particulary funny. I’d already seen the best joke in the movie in the trailer.
It was pleasant enough. If I’d paid money in a theater to see it I would have been grumpy, however. It was fun seeing Murphy, Hall, and Snipes on the screen together.
No Arsenio, but check out Dolomite Is My Name on Netflix if you haven’t seen it yet. Great lead performance from Eddie Murphy, and Snipes is terrific in a goofy supporting role.
I thought it was a pretty bad movie in terms of story and direction. It made me laugh a few times though so it wasn’t completely useless.
My wife and I love coming to america so the throwbacks and seeing the band back together was also pretty fun for a single viewing. It actually felt alot like The Force Awakens to me, in that once you remove the incessant throwbacks and references throughout the movie there’s almost nothing left to appreciate.
How I felt. It felt like a mediocre sitcom that for one reason or another I planted my butt in front of. It was free to me and there’s a bit of chatter about it so why not see it and get in on the conversation? That’s why my butt got planted. I was falling asleep at the end.
I enjoyed it, for the most part. Could have done without the dumb ritual circumcision scene, though.
It was good seeing the band back together, so to speak. You could tell that everyone having a blast. John Amos had an awesome ‘Dad’ moment that the movie sorely needed when it happened.
Kudos to Peaches for their 80s and 2021 cameo.
It was enjoyable nonsense for me.
Nothing special, made me smile.
Eh , all the best parts were in the trailers.
Sad to see Louie Anderson’s character still working at McDowell’s, damn low minimum wage!
Also this is a real thing happening:
The movie was fine. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would based on all the negativity I’ve seen both here and elsewhere about it. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not a classic, and the first one was better in every way - but it made me laugh enough to put it in the ‘enjoyable’ range. For me (and the wife), anyway.
Don’t think I’ll ever see it again, but I’m glad I watched it.
I didn’t like it. I guess there are worse ways for a studio to spend a few million bucks, but I thought it was just a bland rehash of the original gags mixed with some very mediocre new stuff.
We don’t know the situation for everyday Zamundans, but assuming they have some kind of Brunei-style crazy natural resource wealth that is shared with their entire population, working minimum wage in Zamunda might be alright.
I think just that statement is more thought than the writers put into it.