2014: The Year in Film: "22 Jump Street" Review

So 21 Jump Street, the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum reboot of the late 80's TV series, was one of the more pleasant movie surprises of recent years. Directed by the awesome Phil Lord and Chris Miller (LEGO Movie), the flick accomplished several things: it continued the resurrection of the action/comedy genre in the style of Beverly Hills Cop, and it revealed that Channing Tatum is secretly an uber charismatic dude with a great sense of humor.

In the sequel, the stars and creators don't even bother with pretending that this one is anything other than more of the same, shamelessly making meta comments on the bigger budget and "more of the same" approach. In the hands of lesser talent, that would be obnoxious and grating, but the filmmakers pull it off here.  After 21 Jump Street, where Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) successfully brought down a major drug trafficking operation in a chaotic and mad-cap way, the department has decided to continue the undercover operation, only across the street at 22 Jump Street, with Schmidt and Jenko being sent to college in order to investigate another dangerous new drug.

The Good: the "bromance" hetero while pretty damn homoerotic love story between friends should be played out at this point, a solid 10 years after 40 Year Old Virgin, but owing to the chemistry between Hill and Tatum, the film makes it work. This is a story about the enduring bond between friends/bros through the turmoil of new relationships, new places and new friends wrapped in a college film wrapped in an action cop movie. The film never fails to recognize that everything happening is preposterous, but Hill and Tatum are so charming and hilarious in their roles that everything feels funny, smart and fresh. Several supporting characters are given more to do in this iteration, especially Ice Cube, who really relishes the opportunity to play a father, boss and badass police captain in this ridiculous universe. There's an extended post-credit sequence that provides the most LOL's I had in any movie all year.



The Bad: as much fun as everyone involved is clearly having, it's still undeniably lazy to just do the SAME THING over again. This flick is basically a complete rehash of the first one, and while that's a lot of fun, I think there would have been something to be said for letting this one breathe a little more, as it kind of treads the line of tedious and lazy on occasion.

Ultimately, despite being the EXACT SAME movie as 21 Jump Street, and making a ton of lazy bromance jokes, everyone involved is charming and funny enough to still make everything work. The chemistry between Tatum and Hill is palpable, and the flick offers a ton of laugh-out-loud worthy moments. If you liked 21 Jump Street, you'll like this one... and if you didn't, why would you want to watch this one anyway?

7.5/10.