Black Dynamite (2009) - Sanders, White and Minns' funny, enthusiastic, imperfect blaxploitation spoof

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An expertly 1970s-styled poster for Scott Sanders's Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite is out to clean up his neighborhood and punish the ones who are responsible for the killing of his brother. Clues lead him all the way to the highest office in society!

Black Dynamite is a funny blaxpoitation spoof action comedy, which presents a probable plot from one of the 1970s films it pokes fun at (such as Super Fly (1972) and Black Caesar (1973)) slightly eschewed, amping up the effects, character types and technical defects in the filmmaking. It is done with enthusiasm, and especially the dialog is often hilarious. Michael Jai White (Chocolate City (2015)) is a perfect, and very handsome, fit as the title hero.
The story is thrown together in a slipshod manner, and from around the middle of the movie going forward, it really doesn't have much left in its bag for us, regrettably.
Black Dynamite is written by star-co-writer White, Byron Minns (Death Merchants (1991), actor) and co-writer-director Scott Sanders (Aztec Warrior (2016)).

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 2.9 mil. $
Box office: 296k $
= Mega-flop
[Black Dynamite premiered 18 January (Sundance) and runs 84 minutes. The film is based on an idea White got in 2006 while watching blaxploitation films. The film was shot on 16 mm Kodak stock, later converted digitally for editing, in 20 days in June 2008. Sony bought the distribution rights for, reportedly, nearly 2 mil. $ - a poor bargain for them. The film opened #35 in 70 theaters to a 131k $ first weekend in North America, closing after its second week there with a 242k $ gross (81.8 % of the total gross). It was released in only 3 other markets. The 2nd and 3rd biggest were France with 33k $ (11.1 %) and United Arab Emirates with 17k $ (5.7 %). Despite counting as a mega-flop theatrically, the movie likely made money on TV rights,  DVD sales and through VoD. Roger Ebert awarded the film 3/4 stars, equal to a notch better than this review. A spin-off animated series with a same title was created for Adult Swim, which ran in 2 seasons from 2011-15. Black Dynamite is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Black Dynamite?

Coming to America (1988) - Landis and Murphy's second, amusing but less well-constructed collaboration

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The beautifully painted poster for John Landis' Coming to America

QUICK REVIEW:

An African prince is not satisfied with an arranged marriage at home in his kingdom and instead travels to America to fall in love with a woman who thinks for herself.

The first half of Coming to America is totally gaga in Africa with a high-spirited James Earl Jones (The Lion King (1994), voice) as the king. Eddie Murphy (Trading Places (1983)) lands fresh in the US with his beautiful traveling companion Arsenio Hall (Black Dynamite (2009)). The movie is silly and funny for a while.
But then the plot grows increasingly illogical; plot points get delayed (something has to fill out those excessive 117 minutes...), and the phony romance booms... The last 20 minutes of the film are downright embarrassingly poorly written (by screenwriters David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein (The Nutty Professor (1996)), following a story synopsis by Murphy.)
Coming to America was the second Murphy-starring comedy by master director John Landis (The Blues Brothers (1980)) after the much better Trading Places. They would work together again, despite Landis' complaining that Murphy was a "pig of the world" on the America set, in Beverly Hills Cop III (1994).

Related reviews:

John Landis: The Twilight Zone (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
An American Werewolf in London (1981) - Landis' great, funny, scary wolf
The Blues Brothers (1980) - Try to sit still to this one!

Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy in John Landis' Coming to America

Watch the funny trailer for the film here

Cost: 39 mil. $
Box office: 288.7 mil. $
= Huge hit
[The movie was the 3rd biggest hit at the US box office that year, and Paramount's biggest hit of the year. It was both big in the US (128.1 mil. $/44% of the total gross), where it was released without press screenings (due to negative reactions in a local New York press screening) and internationally (160.6 mil. $/56 %). In 1988, Eddie Murphy was hot!]

What do you think of Coming to America?
What's your favorite Eddie Murphy movie and why?