21 Jump Street-2012

Director Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Starring Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill

Scott’s Review #992

Reviewed February 20, 2020

Grade: C+

21 Jump Street (2012) is a nostalgic ode to the general style of the 1980s, more specifically a popular television series that ran from 1987 to 1991.

The teen police drama launched the successful career of actor Johnny Depp.

He starred as the good-looking leader of a team of young police officers who can pass for high school students, and infiltrate potential drug rings, prostitution circles, or other such shenanigans.

The film is hardly high art nor cinematic genius. The gags are silly and trite, other times not funny at all. But the film contains a freshness that feels cool, sleek, and fun and a throwback to the decade of materialism, and the film never apologizes for this.

The combination of stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have nice chemistry, turning a standard buddy film into something bearable to watch.

The film is formulaic, but not dull.

The filmmakers strive for an action-comedy hybrid even though the series was only conventional drama and taught a lesson with each episode. They also change course and focus on two characters instead of a group making it more of a guy movie.

Honor roll student Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and popular underachieving jock Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) reunite seven years after graduating high school at the police academy where they are studying to be cops.

Eager to leave their juvenile problems, and their dislike for each other behind, they use their youthful appearances to go undercover at a local high school as part of a Jump Street unit.

As they trade in their guns and badges for books and bagged lunches, Schmidt and Jenko risk their lives to investigate a violent and dangerous drug ring.

They slowly realize that high school is nothing like they left it just a few years earlier, and they revisit the terror and anxiety of being a teenager again and all the issues they assumed they had left behind.

The film is mediocre and while there is nothing wrong with the film, nothing is outstanding about it either. As the setup poises the audience, Morton and Greg are opposites in every way and must come together to achieve a common goal.

This is a standard cliche told countless times in films such as Stir Crazy (1983) and 48 Hours (1982), the reference being one of the 1980s.

Speaking of the decade of excess, 21 Jump Street achieves what it sets out to in this regard with a clever nod to a revived scheme from that decade.

Set in present times, the film is nonetheless a nod to teen films of the day.

Wild comedy and lavish adventures are in order in every high school situation imaginable. Dating, AP chemistry class, and the senior prom are heavily promoted so that any viewer above the age of twenty-five can reminisce.

A fun and necessary quality is the inclusion of a few of the original cast of the television series-Holly Robinson Peete, Peter DeLuise, and Johnny Depp all appear in cameo roles. This is a treat for fans of the original series and a tribute to its creation, though nothing else is utilized very well and no other history ever quite measures up.

Robinson Peete’s role is nice because she appears as a police officer.

While doing little to honor the television series it is based on, instead of churning out more of a male cop film, the incorporation of the original cast does deserve praise.

The lead actors are charismatic and clever in their roles which saves the film from being a disaster.

21 Jump Street (2012) kvetches too far into slapstick instead of sending an important message to its audience, which it could have.

The box-office hit was followed in 2014 by an unnecessary remake, aptly entitled 22 Jump Street.