This Reviewer has never seen the original 80s TV series of the same name. In fact, I wasn't even aware of its existence until a few days before I went to the preview screening. Armed with the flimsy knowledge that a) it existed and b) Johnny Depp was in it, I really had no idea what to expect. If you're in a similar situation and you're concerned that there will be too many in-jokes or that you won't be able to keep up with what's going on, don't be. For the similarly uninitiated, picture a high school comedy-cum-buddy cop film made jointly by Judd Apatow and John Hughes.
Geeky Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and jockish Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) are the typical odd couple. Enemies in high school they become best friends at police academy as they realise that their only hope of graduating is with the help of the other. After graduation, their utter ineptitude sees them sent back to high school as part of the undercover "21 Jump Street" programme. Their mission: posing as students they must infiltrate the school's dealers and find out who is supplying them with the new drug HST. Oh, and they can't get expelled or sleep with a student or teacher. The movie's fifteen minutes old and you already know that they're going to end up taking the drug and doing at least one of the two forbidden acts.
When it began, I thought I'd accidentally walked into a screening of Superbad. Jonah Hill's geeky and awkward character tries to ask the hot girl if she wants to go to the prom with him and all I could think about was her morphing into Jules asking him to use McLovin's fake ID to get booze for her party. 21 Jump Street starts pretty slowly, introducing Morton and Greg, going from high school to police academy and their first arrest. It doesn't start badly and their botched drug bust is fairly funny but it's not until they go back to high school that it finds its rhythm and the laughs start coming. They're occasionally a bit hit-and-miss and the film meanders off on tangents that go on a bit too long but the hits are more frequent and more memorable so as to compensate for the misses.
Perhaps the best part of 21 Jump Street is the pairing of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. I couldn't think of a more unlikely buddy cop pairing if I tried, but somehow it works. They play off each other really well and Tatum even comes off as the more likeable as Hill's character drifts off into arrogance and self-aggrandisement towards the end of the film. Of course, when they arrive back at high school they get their identities mixed up so Morton ends up playing the stellar athlete and Greg the science geek. Their teachers, Rob Riggle's gym teacher, Chris Parnell's drama teacher and Ellie Kemper's chemistry teacher are hysterical and slightly underused but the best supporting roles come from Dave Franco (younger brother of James) and Brie Larson (Envie Adams in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as two of the popular kids. Here's where the John Hughes influence comes in. Unlike back in Morton and Greg's day, the jocks and the sports stars are not the most popular kids, the environmental activists are. It's a welcome change from the tired old stereotypes. In fact, when Greg accidentally commits a hate crime on their first day, no-one bats an eyelid that a student is both gay and black. Roles within the social hierarchy are reversed as Morton suddenly becomes one of the most popular kids in school and Greg finds himself hanging out with the science geeks. Then come the Breakfast Club-style lessons about fitting in, being yourself and the value of friendship. It meshes surprisingly well with the Superbad-style toilet humour (N.B. I mean that literally, there's probably the best gross-out toilet scene since American Pie on the half-hour mark) to round out what could otherwise have been a standard teen comedy.
Given that I had absolutely no idea what to expect, I was very pleasantly surprised with 21 Jump Street. It's very, very funny and if you go into it looking for just that, you'll have a blast. I still randomly burst out laughing when I think about Korean Jesus.
8 out of 10.
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