Along same street
MOVIE REVIEW: 22 JUMP STREET
One of the many entertaining things about human beings is the way we often think we’re better than we actually are. Take driving, for example. Most people think they’re good drivers but the fact is plenty of us drive too fast, tailgate, fail to indicate and wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do in a skid.
People convince themselves they’re good at all sorts of things regardless of whether or not they actually are.
Irrespective of reality, they believe they have a good sense of humour and that they’re great in bed. A lot of people like to think they’d be better in a fight than they really would be and whenever anyone does a survey on attractiveness, the result is always the same; a clear majority of people think they’re better looking than average.
Most people also like to think they’re a good judge of character. For some reason I’ve always thought I was good at sussing people out but the truth is I’ve made some spectacularly bad calls.
In fact, some of my dearest friends are people I didn’t like when I first met them. Why am I telling you this? Because when I first saw Jonah Hill on screen, I didn’t like him at all.
I didn’t like him in Knocked Up and I found him particularly unappealing in Superbad.
Fast forward seven years and I have to admit I’m becoming a fan.
His performances in films like Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street have won me over and I’m not the only one because both those roles scored him Academy Award nominations.
Hill’s appearance in 22 Jump Street (R13) won’t win him any Oscar nods but it will keep his younger fans happy.
2012’s 21 Jump Street was funnier than most people expected and revealed to the world Channing Tatum’s talent for self-effacing comedy.
Inspired by the 1980s TV series of the same name, 21 Jump Street saw Hill and Tatum’s rookie cops sent undercover at an LA high school to track down some drug dealers.
22 Jump Street unapologetically does exactly the same thing but this time Hill’s Schmidt and Tatum’s Jenko are off to university.
Smarter than it looks and yet juvenile at the same time, 22 Jump Street again showcases its stars’ comedic chemistry and throws every gag its makers can think of at the screen.
Again Hill is the brains of the oper- ation. Schmidt may have a few more clues than Jenko but he’s needy and a bit of a sook.
Jenko, meanwhile, may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but what he lacks in brains, he makes up in brawn. Tatum is the most athletic leading man around and, accommodatingly, the makers of 22 Jump Street have gone out of their way to give him lots of things to leap off.
Joining the leading men are Ice Cube, who reprises his role as their always angry, always yelling boss, Amber Stevens as an alluring arts major and Jillian Bell as her brilliantly deadpan roommate. Less memorable are Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt Russell who appears as a football jock.