Twenty-Two Jump Street

The 21 Jump Street sequel is just like it's predecessor: forced. The film is hyper aware of itself, which makes for an extended joke regarding the film's popularity, stupidity and the possibility of a 23 Jump Street. The film's jokes are basic and, at times, too cringeworthy to even laugh at. The actors themselves are better than this production so why do they do it? Easy answer, cash. The film will easily pull in large audiences of young teenager and adult chaperones whether or not the content deserves it. Ultimately, 22 Jump Street is a prime example of a bad sequel. 

Let's focus first on the two main characters themselves, because honestly I see potential. Imagine a Dumb and Dumber inspired film featuring two incompetent cops. The characters have the believability and back story needed to make a movie like that work but combining this with a Never Been Kissed theme takes all of that away. No one cares about older people going back to college anymore, and they really don't care about undercover cops who get caught up in college life themselves. Also, the audience watches as, within the first few lectures, the pair are clearly recognised as cops by other students. Surely that news would move fast around a drug infested campus? Tatum and Hill are moderate actors, still trying to prove themselves in Hollywood, but this film does them no favours. Especially for Jonah Hill, who, with his work in recent Oscar nominated films, is stooping to an unnecessary level. The portrayals of their roles are adequate but wont be winning any awards. 

The representation of college and university is an interesting one. The film focused mainly on old stereotypes of students. Painting them all as either jocks or creative alternatives who enjoy slam poetry evenings. Not to say I don't enjoy spoken word poetry but this is hardly the be all and end all of a creative student's life at college. However, I will concede that I know very little about American schools and college systems so I could be incredibly wrong about the way things are run over there. At the end of the day, this film is following the same format as the first one. One of the characters take an intellectual route and the other takes the 'cool kids' route, or in the case of this film the jock route. As if the only way to survive the college experience is to chose one or the other.

The story line was entirely predictable. From the identity of the dealer to the outcome of the kidnap scene and the troubles in Schmidt and Jenko's relationship. A movie, even a Hollywood fluff film, should not be this predictable. The inclusion of homoerotic undertones in the relationship between the two men was also expected. It's a play on the traditional bromance that many films have been exploring to some degree. It's popular in Hollywood cinema and as a result it was pretty obvious that it would feature somewhere within 22 Jump Street. And the final, most obvious element of the film was the ending. With the two men reuniting and working together, it could have easily been any other film with two leads with differing opinions. This is what really ruined the film for me. I can forgive a predictable film and predictable characters for a wonderful ending, but sadly that's not what was given. 

I wouldn't waste your time or money by seeing this film.