The 80s have certainly been given primary treatment in 2012. Many movies have been resurrected from the past for a new generation of kids. There are two popular ways to remake an older movie: like Total Recall or Red Dawn, you can basically reimagine the story with more relevant enemies and update the special effects; or, like Dark Shadows, you can lampoon the story and retell it as a comedy instead of a drama. 21 Jump Street is the latter. While the movie has hits and misses on its comedy, the hits outnumber the misses, plus the characters are decently drawn for an 80’s parody movie. 21 Jump Street will find a solid second life on a movie network like HBO, and give hope to those who want to showcase their favorite childhood show of yesteryear.
Instead of sticking to the group crime procedural of the tv series, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller choose to make 21 Jump Street a mismatched buddy cop movie: smooth operator Jenko (Channing Tatum) is the brawn, shy “virgin” Schmidt (Jonah Hill) is the brains. The two use each other to get their badges. Young but inept, they are reassigned under Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) to Jump Street. Their new assignment is to infiltrate a high school to figure out who is supplying and distributing the new drug on campus. However, things get complicated when Schmidt is seen as the cool guy by the big man on campus Eric (Dave Franco) and sweet, wonderful alpha female Molly (Brie Larson). This leaves Jenko as a protegé of the nerdy kids, who are more interesting than he remembers and could be mixed up in this big drug distribution network.
Many of the in-jokes about high school movies, cop movies, and 80’s stories are fresh and inspired. For years, older actors have played kids in high school and college, some more distracting than others. In 21 Jump Street this concept is openly called out: Channing Tatum is even referred to as a 40-year-old at one point. In the action genre, everything usually blows up during the big chase sequence. During a very humorous running gag, we learn how that is not necessarily the case. And for the 80s send-up, the final act has a great out-of-nowhere appearance that enlivens the lagging story. Writer Michael Bacall clearly knows and appreciates these 80s TV shows and clichés, so when he finds a way to poke fun at it, it is lighthearted and fleeting to keep things moving.
The failings of 21 Jump Street lie in the story and the movie length. There is the integration into the social hierarchy, a party, drug influences, the prom, a misunderstanding, a chase, and the final showdown. The story itself can be seen in other movies; 21 Jump Street is not interested in creating new plots, it is more interested in using tired plots and modernizing them. The one fresh piece of scenery is the high school hierarchy: popular kids aren’t dumb: they’re multi-faceted, and nerds can be engaging and understanding when listened to by the right audience. The standard parts of this story cause 21 Jump Street to drag into the final act unfortunately. By the hour and a half mark, I found I had glanced at my clock a few times just because the story felt it had run its course. I admire the attempts to flesh out the characters more, but it gives 21 Jump Street more baggage than the comedy can hold people’s attention.
The big highlight of the movie is the casting. Jonah Hill can play the awkward nerd in his sleep at this point. He lost lots of weight for this role, and he looks believable as a beat cop. Channing Tatum, an inspired choice for Hill’s cohort, is not bad, considering his previous comedic efforts were in Coach Carter and romantic comedies. He has some great banter with Hill as the movie goes on and learns how to deliver good one-liners. Tatum is placed with a bunch of bland characters on the nerd side, so he has to carry his part during those scenes, which represents some of the low points of the movie, although he is trying his best: it isn’t really Tatum’s fault. The jocks are given decent, unexpected personalities. Dave Franco and especially the very cute Brie Larson are very good in turning their roles into believable people. To help Tatum out, great comedic actors are to be found everywhere: Nick Offerman, Rob Riggle, Ellie Kemper, Ice Cube, Chris Parnell and others offer their services to this story. Of note are Ice Cube, who is great as the head officer, and Ellie Kemper, who gets some awesome lines as Tatum’s chemistry teacher (plus one non-revealed other).
Though 21 Jump Street has boring parts, I was never fully bored. Though it didn’t have great characters, it had good ones. For every weakness, that could have crippled the movie, it found a more enjoyable part to cleverly cover up the mistake. Like a really good magician, 21 Jump Street keeps your eyes glued to its tricks without revealing what’s below the surface.