The film started with a wide aerial shot, establishing the royal palace of Zamunda, where everything seems to be luxurious but isolated in a wild forest. It was the 21st birthday of Akeem, the royal prince, whose first wish of the day was to use the toilet and clean it by himself. However, his wish was taken as “mostly amusing”. By the royal courtesy of Zamunda, the prince should only walk after flower petals, and he should not work in any terms including wiping his own dirt. Before Akeem insisted to do it himself, his servant would already have everything necessary prepared by double claps.
The small concert performance only served as a rising bell for the prince, Akeem.
The 'royal toilet', which the prince must use with a servant's assistance. The overarching formalism was the thesis statement of the story, also a great dramatic irony.
Akeem lived a life most people would only dream to have, while most people possessed something he never experienced—freedom, and to be precise, the freedom of acting his own will. In the morning breakfast, Akeem pled to his father, the king of Zamunda, to free himself from the royal courtesy as he felt them rather redundant. The king answered his will, but what came after was to settle his marriage with a general’s daughter who was trained to be a queen. The king’s arrangement implied that if Akeem did not want to act like a prince, somebody else will make him a prince. He insisted that the arranged marriage had been the tradition of Zamunda, and it was natural and perfect for parents to make decisions for their kids. From the choreography, we could see that Akeem’s position was suppressed and distant, and although the king had his aura of authority, he had to speak, shout and make moves like a king. It appeared that all of the royalty members served to a higher will.
The casting and the costume design of Coming to America had such a unique fashion that each main character was highly distinctive and impressive.
Akeem had no chance to disobey his father, but he must not marry someone he didn’t love, so he excused himself by proposing that he should take a journey to see the world before he settled down. The king gave Akeem 40 days to pursue his wish and he must come back and proceed with the wedding after then.
Akeem took Semmi with him, a loyal servant who was also like a brother, to the Queens district of New York City to find a queen.
Akeem was amazed by the residents of the Queens district, while Sammi felt they did not belong there at all.
Preceding Akeem found his queen, he was amazed by the ‘freedom’ of New York citizens breaking the conventional protocols he had to follow in his palace. They could throw garbage everywhere on the street and Akeem even interpreted the F word as an American greeting. For all the chaos that occurred in the Queen district, Eddie Murphy presented them in an innocent way as he believed the poorest area could take off his royal aura, and that was how he will meet his true love without her knowing his identity.
The Queens district was probably the dirtiest and most disordered area of New York City, but Akeem only interpreted it by its name and thought it might be his best chance to find a queen.
When Akeem faked his identity as a goat herder and an international student from Africa, he forced himself to fit in American society. The most sarcastic moment was when Akeem took Lisa who he deemed to be the queen he wanted, back to his poor apartment, his servant, Semmi fixed the poor conditions by renewing the walls and adding in the finest furniture. It was a funny scene, but also a serious message that one’s characteristics had nothing to do with his identity. In the scene, Akeem failed to show Lisa how poor he was, but just because things went off track, Akeem had the chance to refuse to accept what he was supposed to have as a prince. He had become a different man than the one in the beginning.
Akeem decided to dress like a 'New Yorker' to fit in the city.
Both Semmi and Akeem posed as common folks, they lived under the same roof, got the same job as servants at a MacDowell (with a similar style to MacDonald), and shared the same vibe, but eventually, they were led to a different path. When they ran out of money and Semmi’s call raised the king’s concern, the king arrived in New York City in an extravagant manner. He could not accept the fact that his son, the prince, actually worked in there as a servant. However, his rage and punishment were instead taken as salvation to Semmi. The king’s order was the access to restore his royal identity.
Sammie was shocked by the King's visit. He, as Akeem's coach and servant, let Akeem work in a fastfood resterant. Sammie was published to be grounded at the finest hotel, but it was rather a salvation to him.
On the other hand, Lisa was disappointed by her father when he arranged her marriage with Darryl. At this point, Akeem’s intrusion into the original relationship between Lisa and Darryl was justified. Even though the scene of the father’s arrangement was odd and disrupted the natural flow of the story, Akeem was finally anticipated to ‘right the wrong’. He was righteous to rescue Lisa from her father and the boyfriend she realized to be the wrong person.
Akeem dating Lisa. He told Lisa he was a goat herder in his country.
The key theme of the film was breaking the conventional code of patriarchal society. Akeem succeeded but Lisa turned out to be the stepping-stone to Akeem’s success. She declined Akeem’s offer to go with him, but it was more like revenge for Akeem’s lies about his true identity. The ending did not show how Lisa changed her mind to forgive Akeem, only that Akeem’s father, the king changed his mind about the tradition of arranged marriage. Lisa’s internal transformation was overshadowed, as all the problems were still resolved by men. While Lisa is supposed to be a rebellious character, she did not get enough space to practice her free will.
The King insisted that Akeem must follow the tradition of the arranged marriage, he could not do anything about it. The Queen, however, counter-questioned him that she thought he was the king.
Lisa's father, the queen, and the king.
In the final scene where Akeem and Lisa sit in their wedding car, Lisa asked if Akeem would really give up his throne for her, Akeem insisted yes, but Lisa replied it was good to have the throne. The resolution of the film would have been more convincing if there was another climax before the wedding scene, which might be about Lisa going through her inner struggles, but at least it did speak to the theme—the prince, at last, found a bride who could say no to him.
Samuel L. Jackson played the robber in the film. He offered an amusing performance but he was lesser-known back then.
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