21 Jump Street Review

Well here is a first for Bleed Geek: Movies, a review for a movie that is up on the site before the movie officially hits theaters.  Last week I attended an advance screening of the new comedy 21 Jump Street.

When the FOX television network launched back in 1987, one of the networks debut shows was 21 Jump Street, a show about a group young police officers who would go undercover in high schools and colleges to solve drug related crimes.  Now over 20 years later 21 Jump Street is back as a movie, this time using the same basic premise, but rather than going the dramatic or action route the filmmakers have decided to turn it into a comedy.

21 Jump Street was one of those TV shows that I remember watching as a kid, yet I don’t remember much about the show other than it starred Johnny Depp.  When I learned that Hollywood was planning on revisiting this show I was mildly interested in it, but overall I did not care too much.  Then when it was announced that 21 Jump Street was going to be a comedy and that it would be starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum my expectations for the movie dropped pretty low.  I have never been a big Jonah Hill fan, and I think the only movie that I had seen Channing Tatum in prior to this was G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra, so I was not sure of what to expect from him in a comedy.  Thankfully these two knock it out of the park, and prove to be a great comedy team.   Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill play off each other so well, and they are both given many opportunities show off their comedic skills throughout the movie.

The basic plot to 21 Jump Street is very simple and predictable, and usually this would be a big negative for a movie.  However you are not going to see this movie for the story, you go see this for the comedy, and that is what this movie delivers.   The movie opens with Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) two high school seniors and quickly the filmmakers work to show us how different these two characters are Schmidt is the nerdy loser, while Jenko is the dumb jock.  Flash forward a few years and the two meet up again at the police academy where they quickly decide to become friends so that they can work together help each other graduate.  After blowing a drug bust in a park during their first assignment, the two are shipped off to a special undercover unit located at 21 Jump Street.  From there the two are sent to a local high school where they are tasked with locating the drug dealers and the suppliers for a new deadly drug.  Once at the school the two accidentally switch identities that results in them experiencing high school in a different way, and surprisingly they both succeed in their new surroundings.  You can pretty much guess what is going to happen throughout the movie, but due to the hilarious writing and the actor’s performances it does matter as you will be laughing too hard to care.

21 Jump Street is the funniest R rated comedy I have seen since The Hangover.  This movie is filled with a number of hilarious scenes that had me and the audience I saw it with laughing out loud.  The biggest laughs in the audience came when Hill and Tatum are forced to take a drug to maintain their cover, and from a cameo featuring two of the original shows stars.  There were some parts of the story that seemed like they had been cut down significantly during the editing phase, however based on how good the movie is this is a very minor issue, and chances are we will see them in the inevitable unrated home video release.

In closing I will say this, if you are easily offended by foul language and crude humor than this is not the movie for you, however if you are not than I highly recommend this movie.

21 Jump Street gets 4 out of 5 popcorn buckets.