2012: The Year in Film: "21 Jump Street" Review

To be perfectly honest, I had less than no interest in seeing this one, I thought it looked like absolute toilet.. but then a crazy thing happened: the reviews were actually damn good. (As a nerd, I check the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores of basically all upcoming releases. Here's a pro-tip: Rotten Tomatoes scores by themselves aren't all that helpful. For instance, a movie like "the Town", which is undoubtedly good but not great, has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%. So I look at a combination of the RT score and the average rating, listed right below. Anything over 7 is good, anything over 8 may well be great. Obviously movies are a subjective business, but if you're deciding whether or not you want to see something, you could do worse than considering the Rotten Tomatoes scores.) So something like "21 Jump Street", that I would have expected to have a RT score in the 30's, comes out with an 86% and 7.1 average? This requires investigation, and said investigation took the form of a slightly hungover weekend matinee. Going in, I knew that I liked Jonah Hill and have long been a fan, but I sort of hate Channing Tatum.. the dude is largely a rubbish actor and was pretty stiff on SNL, so my expectations for his comedic abilities were.. nil? This has been a passion project of Jonah Hill's for years and is basically the reason he got freakishly skinny, so let's check it out.

First, I have no familiarity with the late 80's show that 1.) launched the career of Capt. Jack Sparrow himself and 2.) served as the inspiration for this flick. According to my mom we used to watch it, but I have spent the last 10 years of my life memorizing trivial facts and drinking, a combination that's highly non-conducive to retaining childhood memories. However, from what I know, the show was an earnest police procedural featuring young police going undercover in high schools and other teenage settings. Jonah Hill and co. have reimagined 21 Jump Street as an action comedy in the "Pineapple Express" vein.

Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are high school acquaintances (Jenko being a cool jock and Schmidt being a nerd) who become friends in the Police academy and eventually partners assigned to bike cop duty. A bumbled bust leads them to be reassigned to a revived undercover operation from the '80's, where they discover they'll be placed undercover as brothers in a local high school in pursuit of a new drug. A mix up over their identities leads to the two having vastly different high school experiences than they did the first time around as they bumble through the case and their lives.

First, this flick is significantly better than it has any right being. Hill and Tatum have great chemistry, and you really believe that this modern day odd couple are in fact good friends despite their obvious differences. There's also an undercurrent of sweet sentimentality and nostalgia as our protaganists use their second high school go-around to make up for lost time. The changes in teen culture over the last decade ("nerds" are now "cool", for one) throw our erstwhile heroes for a loop, and Jenko and Schmidt soon find themselves in over their heads in their new environment.


This flick contains a lot of funny moments and features solid comedic performances from Tatum (I know.. I was shocked as well), the always-strong Jonah Hill and Rob Riggle as a gym teacher/coach. The film is unafraid to confront certain tropes head-on and if anything is a bit TOO knowing with its snarky satire. The action scenes are over the top and feel a bit out of place.. but I'm not a huge fan of the whole "comedy/action" genre as a whole. This flick is at its best when it's being an actually strong high school flick featuring believable characters and interactions. It's often sweet, usually funny, and all in all, well worth a watch. 21 Jump Street is plenty decent, you guys.

7/10.