Few laughs in this 'Animal House meets Lethal Weapon' misfire

Rating: 4/10 (4 April 2012)

Despite all the hype, I'm sad to report that 21 Jump Street, the new action comedy based on the 1987 TV series, just isn't very funny. My problem with it, is that Jonah Hill's 'Morton Schmidt' and Channing Tatum's 'Greg Jenko' are so over the top as cops, that you cannot take most of it very seriously at all.
For example, when Jenko can't remember his Miranda warnings, or even worse, when Jenko fires his gun in the park, after tackling a bad guy, these type of things would probably lead to immediate dismissal from the force in real life. And what about, after being expressly prohibited from serving alcohol to minors, the bumbling duo go ahead and serve up drinks at the 'undercover' party, anyway?; not to mention the confiscated marijuana they take from the police property room place, without authorization.
The joke is supposed to be that in reality Schmidt and Jenko are really glorified fraternity members, who just happen to have jobs as police officers. Where I could definitely buy a bunch of 'loose cannon' fraternity members in a film like 'Animal House', where one demented group is pitted against a 'straight' one, it doesn't really work in the police setting, since as stated above, improprieties are simply not tolerated.
While a good deal of the humor of '21 Jump Street' is juvenile in nature, on one occasion it veers into the area of being quite vile. This is near film's end when the bad guy is castrated and somehow, we're ask to laugh when viewing the scene of his detached member. No it's not funny and I hope word gets around that this is the kind of gross 'humor', Hill and his fellow scenarists are trying to peddle.
No need to recount all the details of the plot. Suffice it to say, that Schmidt and Jenko are on a mission to take down assorted bad guys who have been selling a new 'designer drug' in the school. It's your typical buddy movie where Schmidt is the nerd with a brain who can help the intellectually challenged Jenko, and Jenko is the jock with a powerhouse punch who can bring the socially inept Schmidt, out of his shell.
Actually, it's the bad guys, who really keep the story moving along. There's 'Eric', the eco-friendly big man on campus who moonlights as a drug dealer, and his supplier, Mr. Walters, a physical education teacher, whose goofy demeanor masks a huge anger management problem. To top it off, an assorted bunch of nasties, consisting of bikers and gang members, led by the menacing 'Domingo', lend an air of verisimilitude, not found in the antics of the principals, Jenko and Schmidt.
Occasionally, there are a few amusing bits in '21 Jump' including trucks filled with gasoline that fail to explode as well as some funny hallucinations which we get to see, when the protagonists are forced to take drugs in order not to blow their cover. But on the whole, Jonah Hill and co-writer Michael Bacall's frat-boy humor, lacks subtlety and relies on low-level slapstick routines, to get by. At this point, America is so desperate for something humorous in the movies these days, that a mediocre exercise such as this, is hailed as a comic masterpiece!