Better than the first though that isn't saying much

Rating: 1/10 (24 June 2014)

I swear, sometimes I'm too optimistic. Even though "21 Jump Street" is one of my least favorite movies and one of the worst movies I've ever seen, I felt obligated to see "22 Jump Street" and went through with it because I thought this time around they may of had something. While "22 Jump Street" is better than "21 Jump Street", though that isn't hard for any movie to do, it still suffers from the same problems as the first and has some elements to it that even surpasses "21 Jump Street" in awfulness.
Starting off with Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) once again screwing up a police mission, they somehow get to keep their jobs and are just put back onto Jump Street, now moved across the street in a different abandoned church. Schmidt and Jenko are given the relatively same assignment as they had in the last film except this time they're going to college because they look too old for high school, which raises the question why they're working for a police group that goes undercover as students when everyone can see that they aren't students.
"22 Jump Street" does a lot of the same stuff that its predecessor did, especially the use of self-awareness as a mode of self-preservation. Just because a movie is unneeded and pointless but is aware of it does not make it any less unneeded and pointless. A movie like "Scream" is self-aware, but it uses that self-awareness to try and make it stand out while "22 Jump Street" makes light of the fact that they're doing the whole thing over again without adding anything new to it. It's fine if a movie is self-aware, but "22 Jump Street" does not use it to its full advantage and just uses it as a tool so people can't criticize the movie because it's self-aware.
Once again, Schmidt and Jenko share zero chemistry together, despite the fact they helped each other through the police academy, went through the high school mission together and supposedly came out stronger, and now have been partners for a while. Not only do these two not show any chemistry, their relationship is easily showed up by Jenko's friendship with Zook (Wyatt Russell). I do not remember a single memorable moment between Schmidt and Jenko alone.
This time around, Jenko is the one having fun and getting caught up in the whole school experience while Schmidt is the outcast who we're supposed to feel sorry for. Unfortunately, this backfires as Jenko makes attempts to keep their duo together and Schmidt just can't keep up while at the same time Jenko is trying to move on and Schmidt is holding him back. Why am I supposed to want these two to be partners when it's so evident one is holding the other back and they share zero chemistry?
To the movie's credit, there were three mildly amusing parts to it. One of which involves Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) finding out that Schmidt and his daughter (Amber Stevens) hooked up, Jenko finding out and then running around telling everyone at Jump Street what happened, and the first part of the ending credits with Schmidt and Jenko in med school. Aside from those three parts, the movie is made up of the same desperate attempts at comedy that the first film had.
With the same problems as the first film but with three mildly amusing comedy scenes, "22 Jump Street" is better than "21 Jump Street" in the most superficial terms, but better nonetheless. Though, when you're a sequel to "21 Jump Street", expectations are on the ground so there is no way to go but up.