I so didn’t want to see 21 Jumpstreet. I’d seen the trailer and all the billboards posted all over the damned city and it just didn’t look good. But then I remembered how trailers have really fucked me over in the past few years and decided to give this a try. I’m glad I did because this turned out to be a very funny film. Why? Because they point out the obvious just when you’re thinking the same damned thing.
The movie starts with Morton Schmidt played by Jonah Hill and Greg Jenko played by Channing Tatum as students in high school. Greg is the popular dumb jock and Morton is the smart kid with an obvious identity crisis. They quickly establish themselves in the roles. I swear, this is like the first time I didn’t hate Channing in a role. This has happened before with Jessica Alba when she was in that cool movie Awake where she played a total bitch. I was like “This is all she should play from now on!”
Fast forward to the two of them in police academy. Greg helps Morton with the physical aspects and Morton helps him get his grades from F’s to C’s which makes him happy as hell. They end up as bike cops and confront some drug dealers. It goes bad. They end up catching only one of them since Morton is afraid to shoot people and Greg tackles a guy, humps him, and forgets to read him his Miranda Rights…because he doesn’t know them.
They get assigned to a program for cops who look young called 21 Jumpstreet. They get new identities as brothers and they live with Morton’s overbearing mother. The captain Dickson played by Ice Cube is funny as fuck. The scene where he calls them all out on stereotypes had me dying! Korean Jesus made my face hurt from laughing. Turns out there’s a drug call H.F.S (Holy Fucking Shit) that killed a student.
They quickly discover who is handling the drugs at the school. it’s a kid named Eric played by Dave Franco (yes, James Franco’s younger brother) who is a peace loving eco friendly guy. Oh, god. The scene where they first arrive at the school and Greg punches a Black dude and calls him gay only for it to turn out he really is gay is funny as hell.
There’s a mix up and their aliases get mixed up causing Morton to get the athletic classes while Greg gets the smart kid classes like “App Chemistry” (actually AP Chemistry but he cant pronounce it). Greg hates the fact that he is now the nerdy one while Morton is popular and getting too comfy with the role reversal.
This movie has some cameos from past members of the original 21 Jumpstreet series but I wont spoil who they are. But suffice to say I was very surprised when I saw them. There are some genuine laugh out loud moments. Like, a lot of them. The action is never where you expect it to be. There are scenes where you expect giant explosions that don’t happen much to their surprise. Kids calling Greg out on the fact he looks 40.
Oh, man. If you cant check out Hunger Games and just want to see a movie check this out. Or John Carter which is a great film that suffered from shitty advertising. Just like this one did.
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