22 Jump Street
After the subversive, imaginative blockbuster that was “The LEGO Movie,” directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller return with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill for a sequel to their 2012 hit based on the ’80s cop show, “21 Jump Street.” See, this time it’s called “22 Jump Street” because, I don’t know, better that than “21 Jump Street 2?” Whatever. The first film was an unexpected delight, with terrific chemistry between Tatum and Hill. Could comedic lightning strike twice?
Here’s the thing– comedy sequels rarely ever work. Remember the “Hangover” trilogy? The countless “Bring It On” and “American Pie” movies? The first film is always the freshest, the most energized, and such is the case with the “Jump Street” movies. This time, Tatum and Hill go looking for a drug ring on a college campus, and as with the previous film, they get caught up in the cliches of student life, which this time includes poetry slams, football tryouts, frat pledges, and Spring Break mayhem. Yeah, there’s lip service to conflict between Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) as they track down the suppliers and dealers of a hot new drug called “Why-Phy” (say it out loud), but come on, you know it’s not going to last, even when Jenko finds a possible soulmate of a bro in QB Zook (Wyatt Russell), and Schmidt makes a romantic connection with Maya (Amber Stevens).
In thematic thrust, “22 Jump Street” is completely, and utterly, predictable, but Lord and Miller aren’t content to make a generic sequel. The laughs come more in bursts of energy than as a steady stream of quick-witted hilarity, but the directors and their actors make each laugh count, whether it’s a slow-burn like the homoerotic nature of Schmidt and Jenko’s bond or a crazy-funny scene with Ice Cube’s Jump Street captain destroying a buffet when he finds out a piece of distressing news (although that was topped not a scene later by Tatum’s great response to the same news). It hues a little too close to the cliches of the action-comedy genre, and sometimes works too hard for it’s laughs, to be one of those sequels on-par with the original, but by the time they really go for broke on the “this is a sequel” meta-premise during the end credits, it’s difficult to really care, because in the end, “22 Jump Street” is more fun than it had any right to be, and that’s the result of directors and actors just trying to have a good time toying with the system.
