22 Jump Street. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. Rating: 7 (out of 10)
21 Jump Street was one of my favourite comedies of 2012. It didn't matter that over half the viewing audience was too young to remember the '80s TV show, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum were the brilliant buddy pairing that nobody saw coming, and it paid huge dividends at the box office.
Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who are already laughing all the way to the bank after the super success of The Lego Movie earlier this year, are poised to hit it big again with 21's sequel, unoriginally titled 22 Jump Street. The title, and the silliness of sequels in general, is parodied throughout the film, from the film's very clever opening ("previously, on 21 Jump Street") to one character's warning that "things are never as good the second time around" and the end-credits nutball ideas for further sequels.
So Lord and Miller put all their cards on the table, letting the audience in on the joke that the film will follow exactly the same formula as the first one. That means machine-gun style comedy writing: some of the jokes will miss the mark by a mile, but they are coming so fast that most connect.
After getting out of high school alive for a second time, officers Jenko (Tatum) and Schmidt (Hill) are sent to college to bust a drug ring. Some of the laughs last time around were centred around the changing face of high school life: today everyone recycles and wears their backpacks in an ergonomically correct fashion, and nerds rule where jocks once reigned. The fish-out-of-water mixup - Jenko was assigned to the geek squad, Schmidt with the cool kids - was good for laughs. There's no such insight here, no hint that college life in this decade is any different than it was in the time of Animal House. And here the roles are back to reality, with Jenko joining a frat and the football squad while Schmidt dons a scarf and hangs with the arty kids.
Jenko forms a friendship and mancrush with Zook (Wyatt Russell) while Schmidt performs some egregious beat poetry, beds co-ed Maya (Amber Stevens) and starts to question whether he and Jenko are compatible as friends. Whereas in 21 Jenko and Schmidt built their bromance after years of Jenko's bullying in real high school, they start questioning whether they are meant to stay together in the sequel. (Yep, all sorts of homophobic undertones here; interesting, given Hill's apology for a gay slur on The Tonight Show last week.) The action is ampedup, a given for a sequel with more money thrown at its budget. A chase between the boys, driving a football-helmet car, and bad guys in a Hummer is a highlight. Also playing up the big-moneysequels theme is the new chic headquarters at 22 Jump Street, across the street from the Korean church. We get to see mean Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) as a family man and Schmidt is still desperate to impress him, in a memorable exchange. Supporting characters are less well-rounded, though Jillian Bell is a standout as Mercedes, Maya's roommate. And fans of the first film will be delighted that Rob Riggle and Dave Franco are back.
The third act breathes new energy into the film, just when things were starting to sag a little. All in all it's the same stuff, different campus. But thanks to the winning chemistry between Tatum and Hill and the sheer number of gags that the film offers up, 22 Jump Street is a no-brainer.
