A really funny action comedy

Rating: 8/10 (12 February 2017)

This action-comedy opens back in 2005 where we are introduced to protagonists Morton Schmidt and Greg Jenko while they are still at school. Schmidt is hard working but definitely not cool enough to get a pretty girl to go to the prom with him; Greg is athletic and considered cool but his academic record is so bad he is banned from attending the prom. Cutting to 2012 they have both joined the police; it isn't what they expected though; first they are given the job of patrolling a park on bicycles a job they manage to make a mess of. They are then transferred to 21 Jump Street, a programme to put young undercover cops into high schools. Their task is to find out who is behind the production of a new synthetic drug that has already killed one student. They are given student profiles fitted to their individual skills; unfortunately they prepare so poorly that they don't bother learning their undercover names and end up having to try to be plausible playing the other's role.
This film was much better than I expected; there were lots of genuinely hilarious moments as well as some surprisingly good action. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have a great chemistry as Schmidt and Jenko; they provided plenty of laughs throughout; they may have looked a bit old for high school students but that wasn't really a problem, after most high school films cast people who are much older than their characters at least here the characters are actually meant to be older. The rest of the cast is pretty solid too; notably Ice Cube, as the gruff Captain Dickson; Brie Larson who plays Molly, a girl Schmidt gets involved with and Rob Riggle, as PE teacher Mr. Walters. The comedy won't be to everybody's taste but I thought it was hilarious for the most part; it certainly didn't go quite as far into gross out territory as many recent comedies the one possible exception to this is a scene where a bad guy becomes 'less of a man' after being shot in the groin then tries to pick up what he lost with his teeth! Hilarious? Disturbing? Disgusting? You decide! Overall I'd certainly recommend this to viewers wanting a good laugh with some decent action.