Coming 2 America Blu-ray review

Mar 03, 2022- Permalink

Coming 2 America, the long-gestating follow-up to 1988’s Coming to America, reteamed Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall as the newly-crowned Zamundan King Akeem and his trusted aide and sidekick, Semmi. It appeared on Amazon Prime Video as the daily numbers of the Covid-19 pandemic kept rising. Though not as charming as the original, it did provide some needed laughs in a story that sees Akeem learning that he had been drugged and sired a son in Queens, New York. The film features appearances by original cast members James Earl Jones, John Amos, Louie Anderson and Shari Headley as well as new additions like Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Wesley Snipes.

The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 2.00:1 aspect ratio. The video presentation is very sharp with amazing details in the clothing and environments as well as facial textures. The colour palette is lush, with bright primaries popping in the Zamudan palace and scenery and a more realistic palette appearing in Queens. The black levels are excellent with no loss of detail and digital noise and compression artifacts appear to be nonexistent.

Heading over to the audio side, your ears are offered the choice of an English 5.1 DTS HD-MA soundtrack as well as French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French and Spanish. It’s a solid soundtrack with pretty good usage of the surrounds for various ambient and effects moments. The music is dynamic and it’s in the score that the lower frequencies get a workout. Dialogue is clear, centred and well-prioritized.

The Blu-ray disc is sadly not rich in extras, which is sad given how long people have waited for a sequel. There’s a commentary by director Craig Brewer and a short featurette called “From Queens to Zamunda.”

Aside from the lack of extras, Coming 2 America does have excellent video and solid audio. Though most will stick to streaming it, Eddie Murphy fans will probably want to pick this up to keep their collections complete.