21 Jump Street

            Did you know it’s possible to concentrate so hard, your head feels like it’s going to explode? 

            It took an entire pot of coffee plus two aspirin before I was able to….concentrate more. 

Studying sucks.

            On to the review!

            21Jump Street is 2012’s first big remake.  ‘Based’ on the 1987 T.V. show starring Johnny Depp, this new movie keeps the premise and throws away all the rest.  More impressively, it does it really, really well.

            In the new version, we have Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) as our erstwhile police officers.  This time, they’re two screw-ups who can’t even make a collar correctly, so they’re reassigned to the Jump Street division where their youthful looks put them undercover. 

            Their new mission?  To find out the source of a new synthetic drug before its popularity takes it outside a local school and into the rest of the world.  That’s it.  There’s your entire plot.

            21 Jump Street has no right to be as good as it is.  This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve laughed long and loud at a theater, and unlike a lot of comedians, these laughs aren’t lowest common denominator. (I’m looking at you, Mr. Sandler’s upcoming That’s My Boy.  Ugh.)

            From one-liners to elaborate scenes to set-ups that don’t pay off for an hour, this film is a constant stream of humor.  While I don’t particularly enjoy Channing Tatum as an action hero, he is perfectly cast in action comedies.  I would be fine if he were typecast after this. 

            The success of this movie isn’t just in how well our two main characters play off each other -- it’s the amazing cast surrounding them.  From Dave Franco (I just learned that James Franco has a younger brother who looks disturbingly like him) as a smug rich kid to Rob Riggle playing a Rob Riggle role, it feels like every single person in this movie was either perfectly cast or the script was actually written around them.  Ice Cube as the Jump Street captain?  A fantastically hilarious choice.  Hell, even smaller roles like Ellie Kemper’s Ms. Griggs are milked for maximum comedic effect.

            Yeah, it’s obvious that I like the movie, and about the only thing I can say to the negative is that it would’ve been nice to flesh out our two main characters just a little bit more.  As much as I enjoyed the whole film, there was a surprising dearth of character development aside from the expected revelations at the end.

            Do yourself a favor and check out 21 Jump Street if you want to actually enjoy a comedy.  Judging by the next few upcoming films in that category, this may be your only chance for quite some time.