Health & Fitness
21 Jump Street Review
"21 Jump Street"-Surprisingly Hilarious and Sweet Version of the 80's TV show.
Going into a movie version of 21 Jump Street, which was a cop drama from the '80s starring a young Johnny Depp, I was well aware that I might be in for a miserable experience.
This version of 21 Jump Street is a raunchy comedy starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. The TV show was in no way a comedy, just a serious cop drama. The film turns out to be more of a spoof of the TV show, as well as '80s teen movies and action movie cliches. I would describe the film 21 Jump Street as a mix between Superbad and The Naked Gun/The Other Guys.
The basic setup: You have two wannabe cops who were high school enemies that become buddies while training to be police officers. The joke: They are incompetent on almost every level. Channing Tatum is earnestly stupid and Jonah Hill is insecure and takes himself way too seriously. Jonah Hill is always reliable for laughs, but I was surprised how funny the normally bland Channing Tatum was.Tatum gets some of the best laughs in the film and he cleverly plays with his pretty boy image.
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Without going into too much detail, Hill and Tatum are assigned to infiltrate a local high school that has been selling a new synthetic drug. The two have to find the suppliers and get the drug stash. What follows is an insane, drug-fueled, profanity-laced adventure filled with knowing self-awareness and a surprisingly sweet relationship between Hill and Tatum amidst the raunchiness and the debauchery.
21 Jump Street is probably the funniest movie I've seen in 2012, although it's only March. Tatum and Hill took what was a throwaway idea, to re-invent 21 Jump Street as a comedy, and made it into a pretty good movie.
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The film takes a little while to get started, but once it does I was laughing consistently at the jokes. I feel like I will be quoting this movie for months to come, some of the lines were so hilarious. I am strongly considering seeing this movie again.
As a side note, 21 Jump Street also features one of the most clever cameos I've seen in a film since Bill Murray's appearance in Zombieland.
