“Superman Returns” failed as a reboot because Brandon Routh did nothing more with his character than 1978’s Christopher Reeve. In “21 Jump Street,” Jonah Hill takes a role famously played by Johnny Depp and shoots off a man’s penis.
This is to say that “21 Jump Street” delivers. It wisely reverses expectations every chance it gets, replacing faithfulness to the 80’s TV show with the genre-flipping irreverence best suited for its obnoxious humor.
Based off a television drama of the same name, the film follows two young-looking police partners (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) who pose as high school students in order to pull a drug bust. When their teenage pasts begin to skew their current priorities, their mission and friendship succumb to social pressures from the school they infiltrate.
You think you know what happens, but you have no idea. The aptly cast Tatum becomes anything but a high school heartthrob, dumbfounded at how Hill’s character scores instead with his funny personality. For audiences who’ve asked themselves the same question when watching Hill in “Superbad,” the irony is wildly meta and hilariously contemporary.
All the while, Hill and Tatum treat us to exaggerative antics which modern bros adore. Hill delivers his signature vulgarities while Tatum violates Hill with a stuffed animal out of boredom
Ironically, the film rollicks on like this until its action sequences, each one an adrenalized crescendo to a climax which pokes fun at how easy the crescendo was. At one point, quick cuts of spilling gasoline have you covering your ears for an explosion which, understandably, never happens.
What’s more, though, is that you’ll get your explosion elsewhere – probably when you least expect it. The payoffs made that much sweeter, you end up wanting to be fooled again.
Admittedly, the comedic style sometimes devolves from delicious hyperbole to inane slapstick. But rather than have “good taste” and rule out the film entirely, I recommend you follow Hill’s aforementioned lead: aim just a little lower.
-Rocco Giamatteo
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