Running Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
Quick Impressions:
I think I like Dave Franco better than James Franco (which is easy since I don’t particularly like James Franco). But isn’t it weird that Dave Franco always seems to play a high school student when he’s almost twenty-seven years old? I mean, honestly, he’s only two years younger than Jonah Hill! They were in high school together in Superbad! But that’s not really important. The goal of the movie is clearly not gritty realism.
Dave Franco aside, I’ve been looking forward to 21 Jump Street for a long time, basically because the preview looked funny. (For what seems an eternity, I’ve read about Jonah Hill’s love of 21 Jump Street and his zeal to get the movie made, but you can never be sure if someone will succeed in making us love his passion project as much as he does until you’ve seen a preview—or in the case of Pixar films, the movie itself.)
My family never watched the late 80s TV show, but I’m positive I saw at least a portion of one episode when I was about nine. Mainly I remember someone sitting on the hood of a car, somebody in a skull cap, and two guys getting into a fight while sitting in school desks. Basically, what I know about 21 Jump Street is Johnny Depp, learned after the fact. So if you’re a die-hard fan of the show, you might get more or less out of the movie than I did.
Going in with basically no background in the world of 21 Jump Street, I thought the movie was consistently entertaining and often very funny. I enjoyed watching it the entire time it was on screen and left the theater with a very pleasant feeling.
The Good:
When we went to see this movie, I was incredibly worried about something unrelated, and the movie was so entertaining, I managed to forget all about that while it was on the screen. That’s high praise from someone who can easily become completely unglued from anxiety.
Even though there is an actual police operation going on involving drugs, death, and other serious elements, the movie is first and foremost a comedy. Still, there’s quite a bit of action and even a decent amount of heart. The emotional journey of Schmidt and Jenko—adult friends forced to go back to high school where they were about the farthest thing from friends—is interesting in its own right. Watching the geekie high school loser Schmidt suddenly find acceptance from the cool kids is surprisingly engaging and entertaining. Even better is seeing once popular Jenko realizing that suddenly nobody popular likes him—and for no good reason. For the most part, this movie makes smart choices even at moments when it could have settled for the brainless way out and still performed decently. You can tell that this was a movie made by people who wanted it to be good. It is good.
Best Surprise:
I remember reading that Johnny Depp had agreed to do a cameo, and reading again that he had finished filming it, so I knew Johnny Depp would appear in the movie. Still I thought his cameo here was perhaps the best “you-used-to-be-in-the-TV-show” cameo I’ve ever seen. In general, cameos of this type tend to be pretty weak, but this one most definitely was not. Other original cast members show up, too. People who watched the show should have an easier time spotting them than I did!
Funniest Moment:
The entire movie was pretty funny. If you go to movies often and get there early, you’ve seen some of the jokes before. Once the movie hits its stride, however, and the characters go undercover, most of humor hasn’t been spoiled by the previews.
For a long time, I had lukewarm feelings about Channing Tatum, not impressed by him in any way. Then I saw him on SNL and realized he does comedy pretty well. He’s quite funny in this movie. Even though I’ve liked Jonah Hill since Superbad, I actually think his co-star delivers some of the funniest moments in this movie.
I loved Jenko’s reimagining of the first pop quiz he took and laughed so hard during his first drug-enhanced explanation at the white board.
Best Action Sequence:
The chase scene that ensues when Schmidt and Jenko follow a piñata to an unexpected place builds suspense and amusement and keeps us on the edge of our seats waiting for something to blow up. What happens afterwards during the play is pretty great, too.
The Negatives:
As the movie introduces us to Schmidt and Jenko back in high school, the song “The Real Slim Shady” is playing. Jonah Hill shows up in a white T-shirt and bleached blonde hair, looking kind of like a chunky Eminem, leading Jenko to dub him “not-so-Slim Shady.” The caption tells us that the year is 2005. That just seemed really off to me.
I remember coming home from college for the summer to discover that my sister in high school obsessively loved that song, and that was well before 2005—I think about five years before! Jonah Hill is eleven months older than my sister, who graduated in 2003. So when he actually was in high school, the Slim Shady alter ego would have made more sense.
I mean, I realize that Eminem was still a recognizable figure in 2005 (and basically remains so today), and I realize that Schmidt is not popular, but it still felt off and bugged me for a long time.
Another problem. Almost every single thing in the trailer happens in the first ten minutes of the movie. On the plus side, most of the movie isn’t spoiled and feels fresh. Unfortunately, that means that the first ten to fifteen minutes of the movie seem stale and move incredibly slowly.
You can see from the petty nature of these complaints that I enjoyed the movie. Of course, some things that happen don’t make a lot of sense, but what would be plot holes in a serious drama are just par for the course in an over-the-top action comedy. Some of the humor is incredibly juvenile, but after all, that’s why Schmidt and Jenko were sent to Jump Street in the first place. They’re immature.
Sometimes, the movie knocks you upset the head with a sledge hammer when a flick on the nose would work better. To me, last scene in which a villain is shot went on a bit too long and would have been funnier if it had been slightly less graphic. A joke that starts out funny (mainly because of the way the characters react) becomes less funny as it becomes increasingly unbelievable.
Also, though I’m not denying that Ellie Kemper is talented, I thought her character, Ms. Griggs, the chemistry teacher blindsided by her lust for Jenko, just didn’t work at all. She would have been much funnier if she hadn’t been so over-the-top corny. Her performance seemed more suitable for late night sketch comedy, not a full-length theatrical release. A sprinkling of tongue-in-cheek, wink-wink jokes (i.e. multiple characters remarking on how incredibly old the boys look for high school) work fine when they’re kept short. But Kemper’s entire performance seemed like one of those jokes, taken much, much too far. The character’s reaction to Jenko could have been hilarious if it had been portrayed with more subtlety and more of a sense of progression. Kemper just seemed really fake, like a sentient knock-knock joke inserted into a movie of humans.
All of the teachers were weird, of course, but Chris Parnell as Mr. Gordon made the drama teacher weird in a less improbable way. (In fact, he was pretty believable as a high school drama teacher.) And Rob Riggle’s weirdness was offset by the strange behavior of Schmidt and Jenko.
Overall:
I really enjoyed 21 Jump Street. It was well written (by Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill) and consistently funny. Even when I wasn’t laughing, I was smiling because both protagonists were quite likable and engaging, and the high school students, played by Dave Franco, Brie Larson, and Dax Flame were always fun to watch, as well. If you’re a fan of Ice Cube and would like to see him in a recent comedy that isn’t painful to watch, then you’ll love 21 Jump Street. Also, some of the best lines in the film are delivered by Johnny Depp. Many other stars of the TV series also show up in the movie. It was really fun to watch.