22 Jump Street

Rating: 6/10 (17 October 2014)

Yep I see what they did with the movie title there, clever I suppose but it isn't really anything to do with the original TV show now is it, its just a double team buddy cop comedy. The original flick was one of those movies I honesty don't really remember much about, I do recall it being surprisingly amusing and not a complete faceless load of sh*t but nothing monumentally amazing that stuck in my mind.
So with that we have the obligatory follow up which basically sees the same sh*t happening to the same guys twice, how can this happen? how unlucky can this duo be? aren't they too old for this sh*t? Instead of high school its now college in a highly original plot line (people got paid to think this up?) and guess what...there are some bad guys to nail on the college campus. Que everything we saw in the first movie...but on a college campus? really?
So by now you're probably thinking I'm about to destroy this movie...well maybe...OK just a bit. The fun takes time to get going, its a slow slow start and I was getting itchy feet. It plays out like any bog standard 80's action flick, they catch the bad guys at the start but there's a shoot out and they get away...only to pop up later in the movie. We see the two main characters entering college and trying to fit in pretty much as they did previously in high school. Naturally this means Hill has trouble being the fat not so good looking half of the duo, whilst Tatum being a jock fits the scene like a glove and hits it off with some football lugs.
For me the film only really starts to hit its stride when Hill ends up banging Ice Cube young student daughter which was a solid twist I genuinely didn't see coming. The sequences involving Hill, Cube, his daughter and Hill's parents are really very good and save the film from the boredom of the clichéd sequences where the undercover pair are in classes trying to be students. A later scene where Cube is debriefing the pair and Tatum only just clicks to what's being going on with Hill's bedroom antics is a particularly funny scene, cheesy but good. Things take an odd turn when Tatum's relationship with a football jock seems to get very close, I realise they are meant to be best buds but Jesus I was really expecting some real bromance toilet humour in some scenes. I was waiting for the homosexual gags yet amazingly it didn't happen! would have had money down on that here and there.
On from there you get the obligatory break up of the cop duo as they go their separate ways which I didn't get. Tatum decides to stay in college and play football...so did he quit being a cop? surely you can't do both? yet apparently he was able to keep his undercover role and do both after all. There are the odd small sequences where the pair perform as real cops with all the proper gear yet in a spoof type manner. Tatum being the more athletic fit cop where as Hill...well you can guess. Towards the end you are presented with more obligatory cop action bits and pieces like a car chase with a fancy car and the sort of sneaky twist for the main bad guy behind everything.
I think the words obligatory and rehashed cover this movie pretty conclusively really. Its not a terrible movie, its not a great hilariously funny movie, its a reasonable buddy cop comedy satire/spoof but wholly unoriginal. The best bit about the whole film was the end credits sequence where the franchise is mocked completely by showing us spoofed movie posters and little clips for future installments in the franchise. The actual problem for that being they have literately covered everything that could possibly be done for a third film. So when that next sequel does turn up its genuinely not gonna feel any good because they have spoofed the whole franchise sequels aspect so well at the end here. Mocking repetitive fast food cash grab sequels huh...but at what point does this franchise actually become just that?
6.5/10