22 Jump Street Review

Rating: 8/10 (23 June 2014)

22 Jump Street, a sequel to 2012's 21 Jump Street, which was a remake of the 1981 television drama 21 Jump Street, so it's safe to say that this idea has been around the track a few times. In this episode, we find Jenko and Schmidt immediately following where we left them in 2012, to recreate the exact same story we saw two years ago with minor details tweaked here and there. In a nutshell this movie is funny, it's a mockery, it's laughing at its own stupidity, and absolutely nothing more comes from it. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill return to star as the leads. Both do an excellent job, as it is clear that they now know for sure what kind of movie they are making: a movie thriving off of stupidity, and they grasp that well. Hill has his classic awkward character he often plays that is thoroughly entertaining, feeding off of a script written to match this dork of a character. As good a job as Hill does, I was honestly entertained more by Tatum's performance. The more solemn character who says just the right thing at just the right, or wrong, time is always a delight, and Tatum executes this marvelously. The two leads were great and without their willingness to do whatever it was they did during filming, this movie could have easily been horrible. In the main supporting role we find Ice Cube, who frankly pained me every time I would see him appear on screen. His character was so incredibly forced, and whether or not this was intentional, it was surely not pleasurable. Also co-starring are Jillian Bell, who was very entertaining with the short on screen time she was given, Amber Stevens, Wyatt Russell, Peter Stormare, and briefly Nick Offerman, with that identical character seen in every film of his which never fails to spark some laughter. Returning to the director's chairs are Phillip Lord and Christopher Miller, directing a script penned by Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel, Rodney Rothman, and star Jonah Hill. I believe the charm of this movie was a result of the latter four's work. When sitting down to write the screenplay, it is clear that the writers were well aware of the fact that they were doing a sequel to a remake of a five season, 102 episode TV show. The best part is, they grasped that. As opposed to trying to escape the fast current of making a formula sequel, they chose to hop right in and race to the front, and then mock themselves for it. Directly throwing in lines such as "keep it like the first time" or "it worked the first time, so let's do the same thing" right into the dialogue of the film. That's what this movie is all about. Sure it has characters and a storyline, but more than anything the filmmakers are taking a look at the profession they work in and what has become the easy money in that field, and then ridiculing it. The funny thing is, in doing so, they made the easy money too. I didn't particularly like this movie; I felt it went on too long and there was zero closure at the end of the film, but that doesn't really matter. This is a movie made to be stupid, and it was, and I laughed. I give 22 Jump Street a 7.8/10.