Movie Review: 22 Jump Street


I saw 21 Jump Street at a screening back in March 2012, and it was funny but very raunchy. This installment is a bit more toned down, and does have some laughs, although not quite as many as its predecessor, unfortunately.

If you missed the first Jump Street, you're in luck, because the movie starts out with a "last time on Jump Street" TV-esque montage of the first movie. Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are being sent to college to investigate the "WHY-PHY" (Work Hard Yes, Play Hard Yes) drug being sold there, as one student died from it. They head to MC State together, with their cover being that they are brothers, but they soon find themselves in opposite crowds: Schmidt joins the "art kids" scene, where he meets Maya (Amber Stephens), whereas Jenko is recruited for the football team. The two start to realize they are more dissimilar than they originally thought, but they still must stick together to try and find the distributor of the new drug.

The beginning and ending of this movie were hilarious - make sure to stay for a post-credits scene, too, which I apparently missed. There are some cameos from the first movie, including a jail scene with Dave Franco. Ice Cube is back as the Captain here, and there's a pithy remark near the beginning that his new office looks like "a cube of ice." Overall, though, I felt like the middle of the movie could have been funnier, although there are definitely laughs here and there.

Maybe see this movie. If you're looking for a summer popcorn flick, this is your movie, although I do feel like it could have been better overall. What I do like about the Jump Street movies is that it combines comedy with detective work, so you get a bit of both genres, and it did that here again as well. Hill and Tatum are again great together, but one of the characters was right when she says something like "you look 42 ..." - actually my favorite character, Maya's roommate (Jillian Bell), who was hilarious even when maintaining a straight poker face. If you enjoyed the first Jump Street, you will probably enjoy this one too; just know that it doesn't deliver quite as much as the first one did.

22 Jump Street is in theaters today, June 13th, and is rated R with a runtime of 112 minutes. 3 stars out of 5.

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