2014, 15, Directed by
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube
Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube
A sequel to 2010’s sleeper hit big-screen re-tooling of US
teen drama 21 Jump Street (which made
a star of Johnny Depp) was an inevitable notion. What wasn’t so inevitable was
just how funny it would be. With an identical plot which pits Jenko and Schmidt as college students, undercover in order to investigate the dealing of deadly drug
WhyPhy, this outing plays as a parody of itself, sending up the
jackpot-minded, over-bloated idea of what sequels actually are to side-splitting
degrees. The beauty lay in the fact 22
Jump Street is over-bloated in the one aspect all comedies aim to be, but
rarely succeed in being – laughter. From the opening sequence which
sees Messrs Hill and Tatum (the most effective on-screen partnership this side of
the decade) attempt to infiltrate an Italian cartel, the two actors bounce
around the screen with a camaraderie you just know extends beyond the screen,
heightening the hilarity of the fractures which begin forming in their cop
partnership (‘I think we should investigate other people’, deadpans Tatum to a
morose Hill who wears the eyes of a long-suffering partner who has just heard
the word ‘divorce’).
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, fresh from dealing out
the two funniest films of the year (with this sitting alongside mega hit
animation The LEGO Movie), simply
appeals to precisely what cinemagoers yearn to see. Sending yourself up is a bankable win, but 22 Jump Street manages to remain leaps
and bounds ahead of audiences – stick around for the genius end credits sequence
which sees the duos dabble in a world of potential future instalments; a
genuine treat for the majority, but a inconceivable nightmare for those who
struggle to ride this bandwagon.
4/5
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