Yeah, I’m not quite sure what happened to Landis, after a string of 4 excellent comedies. I dunno, The Twilight Zone incident mighta kinda fucked him up I imagine. After that? A lot of mediocre stuff, this being right in the middle of all of em. Not for lack of Talent. Eddie Murphy was in his prime years here, maybe this kinda signaled the end of that chapter. Before he got Disneyfied. And he does good with the role. Has some initial good comedic moments. But… damn. Just turns into a stale romcom pretty damn quick here.
An African prince, unhappy with his superiorly superior life, forsakes his assigned kinda creepy goodwife bride to go to the land of America to find an intelligent self-strong black woman that he chooses to love instead. Good luck with that there, bro. A bit CosbyShow-esque in portrayal. I tried looking up the rich, developed country he came from, I think they called it Wakanda here? Seems like it was a fictional country, the google says no such place exists, under that name or otherwise? Weird. So I guess this makes it a Fantasy movie? But even in the heart of Queens (nice joke there), he does manage to find love. And a lot of endearing stereotypes. Huh!
I will admit, it’s been awhile since I watched last so I was kinda surprised to see Rick Baker pop up in the opening credits for make-up. Then I realized. This started Murphy’s crazy Prosthetic phase, doing a lot of different characters throughout the whole film. And those, for what they are, are fun. A bit...stereotypical...maybe. And a comedic Arsenio Hall is...okay. I guess his career as a talk show host didn’t fare too good neither. It’s not a bad movie overall, if looking at it as a basic romantic comedy. I just figured it would be something a little more interesting, given Landis’s earlier works. Except for that old white Jewish dude talkin about soup. He was pretty good. Well done, Rick Baker. Well done. to be fair, Landis does actually do a fine comedy in 2010 with Burke and Hare. Just took him a loooong time to get there.
I can’t let the Murphy thing go. Maybe a brief reprieve is Bowfinger in ‘99, but once he got into Kids Movies Fare in 96 with The Nutty Professor, I wrote Murphy off. Suggest something after that that doesn’t suck from after 1990, I’ll watch it. Maybe. But what a weird 180 from one of the most profane, funny comedians of the 80s to utterly shit on his previous resume like that. I’m sure he’s rich though. Hope he’s enjoying it. I guess they made a sequel to this in the Shitshow known as 2021. Not even nostalgia would make me want to watch it. A 2024 Beverly Hills Cop movie? Didn’t you bury that with the turd one in 94? More disappointed here than anything else, he had some good comedic chops back in the day. He was GUMBY, DAMMIT! Sad.
