kingdom – To the '90s and Beyond!

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Coming 2 America is the much-belated sequel to one of Eddie Murphy’s most popular of starring vehicles, 1988’s Coming to America. Murphy returns to his role as Akeem Joffer, an obscenely wealthy prince of the fictional African kingdom of Zamunda, living in bliss with his wife, Lisa (Shari Headley), and their three daughters. With his father ailing (James Earl Jones), Akeem is set to become the king, but this will leave Zamunda, which has only been ruled by men, with no male heir. General Izzi (Wesley Snipes), the warmongering leader of the neighboring country, Nexdoria, has come around to intimidate his way into a marriage between his son and Akeem”s eldest daughter, Meeka (KiKi Layne). However, Akeem is soon informed that he may have had an illegitimate son when he was sowing his wild oats in America thirty years prior. Akeem and his right-hand man Semmi (Arsenio Hall) return to Queens, New York to find the 31-year-old son and heir he didn’t know he had, the street-wise ticket scalper Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler). Akeem flies out Lavelle and his mother Mary (Leslie Jones) to Zamunda to receive his training and perform tests of courage before he can be the prince.

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The setting starts sometime in the 1980s, where we find Atlantean queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) coming up to the surface in the state of Maine to get away from an arranged marriage, seeking a bit of sanctuary and time to heal in a lighthouse run by a human named Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison). The two unlikely partners fall in love, eventually leading to a son, Arthur Curry. The kingdom of Atlantis is not pleased with Atlanna’s apparent defection to the land, sending out their soldiers to claim her back, culminating in Tom being left alone to raise the boy himself as a human, except one with the powers of Atlanteans in his DNA, including an ability to talk to and command all forms of marine life.

We fast forward to Arthur’s adulthood, known to the land-dwellers as “The Aquaman” after a series of public acts of heroism, one including taking down pirates that includes future nemesis Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mareen II). However, Arthur has to become a savior to his adopted people when the current rule of Atlantis, Arthur’s half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), is looking to mount a war with the land walkers who continue to pollute the oceans, seeking the assistance of King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), one of the leaders of the ‘seven seas’ needed to approve. Nereus’s daughter Mera looks to recruit Arthur’s assistance in staving off the uprising from his brother’s charge. Arthur must go undersea to make his presence felt, but the opposite of a fish out of water in his new environs in the Atlantean realm, especially when the situation boils down to a mano-a-mano battle between Arthur and Orm on his home turf (or non-turf, as it happens to be).

Tag: kingdom

Coming 2 America (2021) | Craig Brewer

Aquaman (2018) | James Wan