21 Jump Street (**)
Directed by: Phil Lord & Chris Miller
Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Brie Larson, Dave
Franco, Rob Riggle, Dax Flame, Chris Parnell, Jake Johnson
Seen: March 31st 2012
** Out of ****
21 Jump Street is yet another reimagining of an old TV series, this
time Johnny Depp’s 1987 series of the same name (of which I’ve not seen an
episode). The movie is very self-aware, and fun is poked at this on various
occasions, with even a close-up to a character’s face for dramatic effect as he
starts saying: “… on 37 Jump Street…, wait, that doesn’t sound right…”. While this
self-deprecating humour is fun, the movie doesn’t take too long to fall into the
trap of trying to be cool by, among other things, turning up the swearing and
juvenile jokes to 11. Chances to make unnecessary body-part jokes aren’t
presented often, but they’re unfortunately pounced on, not gracefully passed
upon.
The movie starts with a flashback to high school for the main
characters. Schmidt (Hill) was a nerd desperately wanting to be cool crowd and
have a hot girlfriend while Jenko (Tatum) was a cool kid who was denied his
incumbency as prom-king because he didn’t make the grades. The two are now shown
enrolling at police academy: Schmidt’s still smart but not physically
impressive and Jenko is still the hunk without brains. They become friends and
with each other’s help graduate as officers to lofty ideals of being bad-ass
cops, only to be relegated to bicycle duty in a local park. When they really
screw up by not reading a criminal his Miranda rights and firing their guns in
the air in celebration, they’re given a last option before being expelled as
officers – the Jump Street precinct.
They’re sent 21 Jump Street under Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) where
they join a group of young-looking officers placed in high schools as
undercover agents with one mission, “Infiltrate the dealers, find the suppliers”.
School has changed since they attended, and Jenko’s idea of being cool coupled
with a bit of undercover identity confusion soon has him teaming up with the
school geeks to find covert ways of uncovering their suspects. Schmidt happens
into the cool group led by Eric (Franko), and becomes fast friends with the group
as he starts falling for Eric’s now-and-then girlfriend, Molly (Larson). Together
Schmidt and Jenko starts putting a case together as they re-navigate some high
school memories, from a viewpoint neither of them expects or used to know. As
they near the dealer things get dangerous, and soon enough things boil down to
shoot-outs and explosions (or expected explosions), with a casting surprise or
two for those who were fans of the original series.
While there are a few hilarious and exciting moments in 21 Jump
Street, the overall feel is too crass for me. It is one of a string of recent movies
that received high praise but turned out extremely low-brow. It’s too much of
the unfunny and tactless Superbad and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and too little of
the very good and well-balanced Forgetting Sarah Marshall or The Pineapple
Express. 21 Jump Street is not a good action movie and it is not a good comedy.
To me it is simply not a good movie.
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