21 Jump Street

2012
Written by Michael Bacall & Jonah Hill
Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller

21 Jump Street is a hilarious and entertaining action comedy that manages to be a police story, commentary on modern high school culture vs. just a few years ago, buddy comedy, and meta humor behemoth. It far exceeded the meager expectations I had going into it (in yet another advanced free screening for the public – Tars has sold out once again! Dammit, Tars, stop selling out!) Updating the original series seems like it would be easy, as the plot (cops that look young are sent undercover into high schools) is simplistic enough that one fears the script being from the land of Generic. But no one working on 21 Jump Street hitched a ride on the lazy train, instead they shot for the moon, and now the moon’s head is hanging above their fireplace.

When I was younger, I watched episodes of the original series, but for some reason I can’t seem to remember anything at all about the show. Even being reminded by Wikipedia and a few fan sites has refreshed nothing, so I’ll have to watch a few episodes to get memories back. Or maybe my mind has been overwritten with more Martian secret agent memories again…

Meta humor is strong in this one, with characters commenting on their behavior, Ice Cube as the angry black captain telling people to embrace their stereotypes, and various goofs against remakes and police film cliches/tropes. The high school setting becomes a playground for skewering modern teenage culture with the texting and viral videos while the cops become fish out of water on multiple levels, Schmidt suddenly becoming popular while Jenko is stuck with hanging out with the chemistry kids.

Schmidt (Jonah Hill) – Former school loser turned undercover cop who finds new-found popularity thanks to how things have changed in the past few years. Becomes too involved in his fake identity as things begin to spiral out of control. Besides starring, Jonah Hill helped write the story for this remake. Jenko (Channing Tatum) – Former jock who doesn’t like to study, who is accidentally thrown into the honors classes when put undercover at school. Jenko was the name of the original 21 Jump Street CO for the first few episodes before he was killed by a drunk driver. If there was a connection mentioned, I missed it. Molly Tracey (Brie Larson) – Eric’s girlfriend who becomes Jonah Hill’s love interest as he tries to infiltrate/befriend Eric’s group. Eric Molson (Dave Franco) – Drug-pushing hippie with rich parents who ignore him. Starts becoming in over his head, but too arrogant to back down. Dave Franco is James Franco’s brother, and looks like an “If they mated” for James Franco and Zac Efron. Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) – Dickson is angry, black, and a captain. And proud of it.