Funny, but not better than the first

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2014)

22 Jump Street 7/10- I loved 21 Jump Street to say the least, it is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Needless to say, I had pretty high hopes for 22 Jump Street. I was satisfied with the results, not overly impressed, but satisfied with the sequel. While 22 Jump Street suffers from sequel prone receptiveness, it still delivers on good humor, a well enough thought out plot, and solid chemistry from the lead actors: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill.
Even though this film says that it is basically doing the same exact stuff in the first one, if you do a joke a second time, it is almost never as funny as the first. The Hangover Part II definitely told everyone that. I get that sending youngish looking cops into a school demands some of the same routine, but I was expecting at the very least a different approach on it. Now, they did do a different approach on some of the routine, but if the director did this for all of it, the movie would have benefited. I also believe that this film lost some of the concepts that made it so hilarious to begin with. The main one being that Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill are just regular cops, not a couple of James Bonds where every little thing can cause an explosion. They played this well in the first film, but it seems like they forgot about it in the second film. There was other little stuff that bugged me, but that comes with every movie. The only other thing that I would have changed was the ending credits scene, which was funny, but over- extended.
I thought the casting for this film was really done well. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill have such great chemistry together that it is hard not to laugh when they are together. Ice Cube is an easy pick for an angry captain and plays it very nicely. Most of the returning cast was probably the best actors of the film, but the new members still kept the scenes they were in entertaining. The new gags were probably my favorite part of the film, I do not want to give any of them away, but they nearly had me on the floor laughing.
I liked that 22 Jump Street was set on a much bigger stage, the first film had to do the ground work, but I was glad it was taken to a new level. With a new stage came a much broader range of jokes and gags that helped this picture differentiate from the original. It was also a nice change of pace to see Channing Tatum as the one having fun and Jonah Hill as the one who was having a hard time getting through the case (which is what I thought was going to happen in the first film). Football was a nice touch to the storyline, even if it was very hard to believe. The only thing I would have changed about it was to go away from the same cliché of football players being dumb, hard headed jocks. I thought taking Channing Tatum parkour skills to a new level was a nice change of pace. The plot twists kept you on your toes for most of the film and this Jump Street franchise still did well at making fun of the past buddy-cop Hollywood movies.
Hands-down funniest movie out right now. Its been a while since a solid comedy has come into theaters and I recommend you take advantage of that and see this film in theaters(only if you like to laugh though).
For more of my reviews, go to my website at reviewsbywest.com