Health & Fitness
MOVIE REVIEW: '21 Jump Street' Keeps The Laughs Coming
It's another movie based on an old TV series, but this one is actually worth seeing!
Having never seen the original 21 Jump Street, there was nothing at stake for me in terms of how faithful it was to the iconic TV series. Nonetheless, it's incredibly enjoyable on its own terms.
The movie begins with two high school students, Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill), a nerdy Eminem wannabe, and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum), the popular, dim-witted, handsome jock, who of course makes life miserable for the rest of the school.
Years later, they meet again when they are both training to be police officers. Theirs is a friendship of necessity: Schmidt helps Jenko with the testing part of their training, and Jenko lends Schmidt a hand with the athletics. Soon this leads to a real friendship, and after they graduate they're given the exciting job of bike cops and quickly reveal their ineptitude.
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But because they both look young, they are assigned to go undercover at a high school in order to bust a drug ring. Once there, Jenko discovers that his brutish ways no longer make him popular, as the students apparently value the more academic, overachieving idealist way of life. Before long, the movie actually has Channing Tatum (!) comfortably finding his niche with the nerds while Jonah Hill now finds himself one of the cool kids.
Of course, in an action film, the movie is almost contractually obligated to provide a few things: car chases, a shootout, a boss who yells at our heroes and continually undervalues them. '21 Jump Street' gives you what you expect, but it keeps its tongue planted firmly in its cheek the entire time.
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Ice Cube plays a screaming captain who acknowledges he's a stereotype, the characters talk about how they're using an idea that's recycled from the 80s, during the chase scene, the usual ingredients fail to cause explosions, and people continually remark that the 31-year-old Tatum looks, well, 31.
This could have easily been just another forgettable action flick in an industry that's always looking completely devoid of anything original. Instead, its a laugh-filled romp that's smarter and funnier than it should be.
REVIEWER RATING: B+
