#15 on my top 20 most anticipated films of 2014 is 22 Jump Street, the sequel to the belly-busting surprise 2012 hit, 21 Jumps Street. In the highly anticipated sequel, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) return to the Jump Street program after botching a narcotics operation, but this time they’re off to college. Their mission: to find the supplier of a drug known as WHYPHY that led to the death of a student who was photographed buying the drug on campus. Their mission leads them to a kid on campus who plays for the football team and soon enough Jenko finds a place of likeminded individuals, becoming besties with the QB while Schmidt follows him like a lost and unwanted dog. The film chronicles their hilarious investigation, their attempts at adjusting to college life and so much more.
First things first, I will not be spoiling any of the comedic scenes in this review. I want you all to be able to go in as blind as possible and come out satisfied knowing that some of the comedic twists weren’t ruined for you. Now, back to the review.
22 Jump Street is a (bro)romantic comedy disguised as a action/crime comedy. You might be asking yourself, seriously? And the answer is yes, while at first it didn’t seem that way, when you take a step back you realize it’s much more of one than initially led to believe. The boys head to college to track down the supplier of the dangerous WHYPHY drug, but in the process they end up swapping roles that they had in high school and grow apart. Jenko finds himself with the frat boys and football players who the narcs believe are dealing the drugs, but in the process Schmidt is exiled due to his incompatibility with the frat and Jenko’s amazing partying abilities. What starts off as a loving bromance turns into bitterness as one discovers a new group of friends who he fits in with while the other is left feeling betrayed. It’s the type of love and friendship story we’ve seen in plenty of films but never portrayed in this sort of structure which is why the results are hilarious.
The directors of the surprisingly funny original, Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, are back for round two and have some high expectations to meet for this go. The men behind The Lego Movie have put their raunchy caps back on and delivered, what will likely be, the best and funniest comedy of the summer. The trickiest thing the two had to overcome was finding a way to surprise and cleverly bait the audience, something they did extremely well with the first film. While there weren’t many over-the-top surprises and shocks, the film has a couple of extremely brilliant scenes that’ll have you howling with laughter
22 Jump Street has one superior attribute over the original and that’s the band of supporting characters and the actors that portray them. Jillian Bell plays the roommate of Schmidt’s love-interest and every time she is on screen she just bashes on him for looking old with a deadpan face, it’s a bit that works every time she’s in front of the camera. Additionally, The Lucas Brothers play these twin stoner roommates who live across the hall from Schmidt and Jenko and they never cease to end a scene without making you laugh. Even Jenko’s new BFF Zook (Wyatt Russell) does a solid job of contributing ridiculously on point bro lines while bonding with Jenko. Lastly, while Ice Cube was in the first film he gets a bit more screen time this go-around and he certainly makes the most of it, working with much funnier material than he did in Ride Along, where he plays a similar character, he brings a ton more energy and action to the film.
On the whole, 22 Jump Street is a very funny film, but in my humble opinion it falls just short of the first when it comes to the laughs. There are a few jokes that feel familiar or fall flat but, for the most part, the two directors and three screenwriters were able to inject a lot of clever and fresh humor into the type of college flick that’s been in comedic purgatory for quite some time. Generating humor from questionable material is what Lord and Miller have mastered and they’ve once again proven their comedic prowess with this summer’s likely winner for best comedy.
Rating: Not as good as the first (which was hard to do), but still chock full of great, brilliant laughs. (6.7/10)
PS Sit through the credits for more laughs and surprises
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