Movie Review: 22 Jump Street

Well, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie) have another hit on there hands, as far as I'm concerned.  In the year of surprisingly good sequels (Winter Soldier, The Raid 2, X-Men: DOFP), we can now add a great comedy sequel.


Schmidt (Jonah Hill, Accepted) and Jenko (Channing Tatum, Haywire) are back.  After their "successful" operation that they ran from 21 Jump Street, they are given another go.  This time they are given a bigger budget and a bigger base of operations across the street at 22 Jump Street.  Looking too old to go undercover as high school students again (because they weren't in the first film?), they are assigned a case to track down a new drug supplier posed as college students.  Hilarity ensues.


This movie made me laugh, a lot.  Success!  I think a lot of things went in to making that happen.  Start with Lord and Miller.  They did not have any writing credit on the Jump Street movies, like they did on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie.  Their presence was still felt, however.  They direct a movie with a rapid fire approach.  The jokes just keep coming one after another.  They don't wait for the laugh.  You either laugh at a joke, or wait a very short time for the next one to hit you.  Fortunately they had good writers to make this work as well.  Lord and Miller have a knack for doing meta jokes better than people who are making straight parody movies in this business as well.  There is a whole dialog near the beginning of the movie about how bad sequels are, and why, that could have been a complete mis-fire in the wrong hands.  Many would take jokes like this and just cram them in.  They cleverly weave these things into the story, to make the whole thing make sense, and they don't give you the nudge-nudge, wink-wink pause to see if you got the joke.  Again, they keep it flowing and move on to the next thing.  The biggest parody this film makes is that it is a complete (b)romantic comedy under the guise of being a buddy cop sequel comedy.


The other big thing this movie has going for it is the cast.  Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum surprised the hell out of me in 21 Jump Street.  They have had some successes in my opinion, but I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of either one.  Together, however, they have amazing chemistry.  You can definitely tell that their friendship only grew after doing that first movie, because they work even better together in this one.  They have that flow of two people that genuinely like hanging out and goofing around with each other.  They don't seem to take themselves too seriously, which works to the film's benefit.  The only thing that may not have worked as well for me were some of the Jonah Hill scenes where he didn't have Tatum to play off of.  There was also a great supporting cast surrounding them.  Ice Cube (Three Kings) returns as the angry captain.  He even gets a bigger presence than the first film, which turns out to be a good thing.  New additions to this film include a few new college students.  There is a pair of twins played by the Lucas Brothers who come in for some amazingly timed jinx jokes.  The best newcomer may be Jillian Bell (Bridesmaids) playing a college student that just continuously points out how old the two leads are with great straight-faced dead-pan timing.


There is not much else to say.  This movie was just the perfect mix of writing, directing, and acting.  The result of which was a fun time at the movies.  It's a movie that will be funny at any viewing, but I felt was enhanced with a crowd.  For every joke that didn't work, there were 2 or 3 that did.  The year is only half over, but I think it will be hard for this comedy to be topped.


Rating: *********- (9 out of 10)


Memorable Quote:
Jenko: Something cool!