Halfwits cop to their own silliness
Tatum and Hill delight in taking the mickey as the buddy detectives go undercover on campus
22 Jump Street
Rating: ★★★
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, Wyatt Russell
Directed by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Running time: 112 minutes
Back in the day when 21 Jump Street was earnestly trying to convince us cops could pass as high school students, the spoof movie was synonymous with Leslie Nielsen and slightly naughty sexual doubleentendres.
These days, we have spoofs of spoofs and single- entendre sex jokes that rely on various bodily excretions.
What was once dumb is now dumber, which means the timing for 22 Jump Street couldn’t be better.
An entirely stupid comedy centred on two halfwit cops named Schmidt ( Jonah Hill) and Jenko ( Channing Tatum), the great thing about this sequel to the surprisingly successful 21 Jump Street is its 21st- century self- awareness.
Taking the mickey out of itself from the opening scene, it’s the gruff captain ( Ice Cube) who keeps it real for the audience.
The partners go undercover once more and end up in a coed college dorm as roomies. Yet, unlike the last time they had to take classes together, the college experience lets them grow as individuals and find their own path — as well as new partners.
Jenko is an immediate hit with the frat boys and football players because he’s athletically gifted and becomes the dream receiver for the all- star quarterback. Schmidt, on the other hand, doesn’t have any brawn and starts to feel threatened by Jenko’s new friendship with Zook ( Wyatt Russell), the blond- haired Adonis worshipped by the entire Greek alphabet.
Schmidt isn’t exactly rush material, so he ends up on the other side of campus, watching bad slam poetry and trying to get lucky with artsy chicks.
These bits aren’t all that funny unto themselves, but the whole picture has such a clear memory of college culture that it actually attains a sociological edge as it articulates and magnifies the minutia and melodrama that constitute our coming of age.
For instance, there’s a running “walk of shame” joke that illustrates a subtle reason for the film’s larger comic success: It’s sexually liberated and goes out of its way to deconstruct sexist cliché.
Jenko even has a whole speech about proper usage of the word “gay” — which only gives extra depth to the underlying gag of man- to- man love that forms the foundation of the whole cop buddy narrative.
Tatum and Hill are able to sell the revision because they’re playing it straight up. Moreover, they actually have chemistry together .
The movie works because it’s not reinventing the wheel. It’s not even retreading it. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ( The Lego Movie) simply put this old 10- speed on its kickstand and build up an entertaining sweat going nowhere new at all.