Jettisoning everything but the premise of the original, 21 Jump Street follows ineffectual cop duo Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill), the former the typical popular high-school jock, and the latter the try-hard, Juggling Society nerd who end up best friends in police academy. A fiasco with drug dealers gets them transferred to 21 Jump Street, an undercover unit that has them infiltrating a high school to bring down a synthetic drug ring.
Like any good hallucinogenic, 21 Jump Street hijacks reality for sheer entertainment, with the obvious gross-out hijinks laced with some surreal meta-humour that pokes irreverent fun at typical Hollywood genre archetypes. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller milk the tight, frenetic script for all that it`s worth, with highlights including a particularly noteworthy car-chase sequence that subverts audience expectations of those predictable Hollywood explosion moments.
We never got the memo but, apparently, jocks are now passe and nerdy environmental liberals are in, a reversal that allows for not only gut-busting humour, but also some genuine character growth, as Jenko and Schmidt reacclimatise themselves to their new positions in the high-school pecking order. The fish-out of-water premise informs the bulk of the film`s humour, occasionally predictable but utterly hilarious in terms of execution and sheer energy. Jonah Hill reprises his role as lovable loser, and is pitch perfect as Schmidt, the archetypal geeky cop. The award for most surprising performance, however, goes to Channing Tatum as lunkhead officer Jenko, who throws himself into the character with a frenetic enthusiasm that belies his earlier roles.
For those of us who dig adult comedy, 21 Jump Street is a gleefully vulgar, irreverently trippy number that`ll leave its audience in stitches. Me Gusta Mucho!
Summary: Exploding chickens, gratuitous violence, meta-humour… auhh yeah!
Rating: 4/5