So Stupid, It Slapsticks You!!!

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2014)

Anybody who watched the straight-faced Johnny Depp television cop series "21 Jump Street" (1987 thru 1992) probably won't appreciate the low-brow, comedic, big-screen adaptation co-starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Incredibly enough, co-directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, who went on the helm the hilariously funny "The Lego Movie," called the,shots on this lowest-common denominator parody. "Project X" scenarist Michael Bacall and an uncredited Jonah Hill scrape the bottom of the barrel for humor in this relentlessly-profane, R-rated comedy that is hopelessly far-fetched when it isn't completely infantile. The best thing about "21 Jump Street" is the wacky bromance that Parks and Miller made out of this comedy.
Our two heroes were enemies in high school before they joined the Metropolitan City Police. Schmidt (Jonah Hill of "Superbad") and Jenko (Channing Tatum of "White House Down")wind up becoming best buddies at the police academy and lend each other a hand to graduate in their areas of expertise. Schmidt is the nerd who chokes when he asks for a date to prom, while Jenko is the jock with no practical knowledge. Eventually, they find themselves assigned to patrol a park on bicycles. After they arrest their first suspect but forget to advise him about his Miranda rights, their commander, Deputy Chief Hardy (Ned Offerman of "Wristcutters: A Love Story") transfers them to an undercover narcotics operation at 21 Jump Street.
Naturally, it has become a Hollywood cliché that the actors and actresses cast as teens are far too old for those roles. The same holds true for both Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. They no more look like they could infiltrate the ranks of a high school than they could masquerade as newborns in the maternity ward. Several times throughout their undercover operation, the high school student observe that they appear too old for school. Nevertheless, Morton Schmidt and Greg Jenko enter high school and struggle to blend in with the other students. Eventually, our dim-witted heroes stumble onto the drug dealers in high school selling the synthetic H.F.S., but they aren't racking up one bust after another like their counterparts in other undercover operations. The first time that they meet the student on the inside, the guy forces them to take the drug in front of him. Our heroes do everything possible to stop from taking the drug, but they realize that if they don't, they will blow their cover. Ironically, our heroes aren't deemed trustworthy until they make utter buffoons of themselves during the Peter Pan school play.
Most of the humor is borderline slapstick, and the action scenes are pretty tame. The car swapping stunt that they do in gridlock traffic is amusing. Ice Cube is hilarious as our heroes' loud-mouth superior who uses profanity at the least provocation. The scene that is most gross occurs near the end when they expose the man behind the narcotics ring at school. Jenko catches a bullet in the shoulder, while Schmidt shoots off the drug dealer's penis. His hands zip-tied behind his back, the villain gets on his knees and picks up his severed member in his mouth. The basic plot has our heroes tangling with the same drug dealers that they dealt with in the park. Lord and Miller skewer all the clichés, not only the standard procedural clichés, but also some others. When was the last time that a remake killed the two heroes of the television show?