22 Jump Street

Let me preface this review by saying, I was super excited about 22 Jump Street. I loved 21 Jump Street and I thought it was really a movie that not only deserved a sequel but if a sequel were to be released, I would accept it with open arms.

And I really do accept 22 with open arms. It was a really well made sequel.

The movie starts off basically stream lining our heroes, (Tatum and Hill) to where we expected them to be in the last film, College.

We all knew, from trailers, from the last words of Ice Cube, that the sequel would be these two in college.

They are returned to Jump Street but instead have to move across the street to 22 Jump Street. As they're walking across the street, there's actually a line where they say, before you know it, we'll be back across the street at 23 Jump Street, as some condominiums are being built. They then say, let's not get a head of ourselves.

From the beginning, the movie had a plan to where it wanted to go and they didn't want to waste time, they just wanted to get us there so we could enjoy the funny times of these guys at college.

Its a very similar set up. They go undercover as students in college to investigate a drug that killed a student.

Being very different and having different skills, Tatum and Hill fall into different social groups and hilarity ensues as they try to figure out who is selling the drugs.

However, the movie does a really good job at making the film seem different, familiar with the characters, throwing them into pretty much the same circumstances but making it seem different.

The different characters, though similar to the characters in the first film, have their own personalities. Its not like Amber Stevens was Brie Larsen's exact character. They serve somewhat similar purposes in the movie but they are different characters. Different characters that actually served the same purpose.

And dear lord, Amber Stevens is just ridonculously gorgeous in this film.

Probably the biggest problem I have with this film is that, in essence, it is the exact same film as 21 Jump Street. They're doing something other than undercover stuff in the beginning. They're not good at it, then they go do Jump Street, they're still not good at it. They try the drug, they meet new people, assimilate into different social groups. They get mad because one is getting swept up in their own social group and lose touch of the friendship. They have a "break up" montage, come together for one last battle. stop the bad guy, and reconcile their differences.

Let me be clear, they do it well. Not only that but they address the fact that its the same movie. Going back to the thing I said before, this movie is almost very aware that it is a sequel and a lot of the jokes are very tongue and cheek, almost winking to the audience that yes, this is the exact same movie, just tweeked a little bit to make it seem different.

You know what other movie did that?

Yeah, Remember the Hangover part 2?

That movie did this exact same thing, tried to tell us it wasn't the same movie and robbed me of a 9 dollar ticket.

22 Jump Street ultimately does the same thing but they address it. There are several jokes stating that this movie is in essence the same thing you watched before called 21 Jump Street. But by stating that its the same thing and making a joke out of it, the movie actually gets really funny and a lot of jokes are made.

My problem is less the fact that its the same movie but more about how much they harp on the fact that they know its the same movie.

In 21 Jump Street, the police chief, played by Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) does that similar joke by pointing out to the audience that 21 Jump Street is a reboot of a TV show. He basically says writer's cant think of anything original so they just rehash old shit. But the movie didn't play off that joke throughout the entire movie. Ron Swanson makes his joke, its funny, I laugh at it everytime, but then the movie starts to branch off and give us the awesome humor that made 21 Jump Street awesome.

I almost think 22 Jump Street really banked on that joke being really really funny. And it was. But the more they made that joke, the less I laughed at it. And unfortunately, the end credits, while incredibly funny still, weren't as funny to me because they had told this joke multiple times and it took away from the climax those end credits were suppose to be.

The bright side: That's probably the biggest problem I had with the movie. While the story didn't feel as fluid to me as the first movie did, it was really freaking funny. I can't imagine anybody going into this movie and not laughing at some parts of the movie. Every comedy movie I review I give my bullshit schpeel about comedy movies being so subjective and I can't say a movie is good because I thought it was funny cause you might not.

The truth is, this movie has a mix bag of great humor. Its got slapstick, its got ironic, satirical jokes, it has raunchy humor, its got dumb humor. I can't imagine at least some of this stuff won't make you laugh.

The duo between Tatum and Hill is great. The interactions between them and other characters is hilarious.

Ice-Cube... my god. Was hilarious. Instead of just being the stereotypical police captain, he actually gets into it and some of his funny parts in this movie were the parts where I was laughing the hardest.

The minute you see the movie you will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Again, the biggest problems I have with the film is the overuse of the self-awareness it had that it was a sequel, I thought that joke was overused, and the story just wasn't as fluid as 21. I don't mean that I wasn't laughing still at the parts that really weren't needed but 21 Jump Street, to this day, just feels so right and so put together perfectly.

22 Jump Street had a couple moments that either didn't add up to anything, or was them just dicking around. Again, them dicking around is hilarious, but it would be nice to have it move to a point instead of them just dicking around.

Kind of going off of that, one other thing I would have wanted them to improve on is actually putting these guys in a classroom.

Swear to god, when they go to college, they go to their classes and then they never go back again.

In 21, you saw them trying to maintain their cover in classes. I know college is a different ball game but the scene that makes me regret the fact that there wasn't much time spent in the classroom is a scene with the comedian Patton Oswalt.

Oswalt has a brief performance as a tenured college professor. He gives a whole speech on how college is the time to find yourself. It really makes fun of the way college is done because he states Tatum is doing the right thing by questioning him. I think there was a lot of things to build great humor with that they just missed out on.

At one point, Tatum does mention the effect his human sexuality class is having on him. It's a quick joke but it would have been hilarious to actually see these two in college classes and watch them struggle with it the way they did in the first film.

But as many things as I can point out of what they could have done in this movie, I can do a thousand other things that they did right in this film. Getting mini performances or cameos from big name actors, awesome, but also giving opportunities for people like Patton Oswalt, Jimmy Tatro from Youtube (a role he was made for) means 22 Jump Street knows exactly what they are doing, and they do it really, really well.

I go back and forth on whether or not I like this movie more than 21 Jump Street and when I watch the two back to back I'll be sure to let you know. But for now, 22 Jump Street was hilarious. Great performances, not only from Tatum and Hill but the entire cast.

Its a fun movie and probably the best comedy of the summer.

But what did you think of 22 Jump Street? How does it compare to the first film? Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. Speaking of Jimmy Tatro, here's a promo I think they had him do on his YouTube Channel. It wasn't that big prior to the movie because... I never saw this prior to the movie. But here it is. Enjoy!