22 Jump Street Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: 22 Jump Street
Year: 2014
Director: Phil Lord
Country: US
Language: English

21 Jump Street was a surprise hit in 2012; very few people though the film would become a financial and critical success due to a lack of general nostalgia for the original series starring A-list actor Johnny Depp. The film was somewhat loyal to its source material, but strayed far enough to be considered clever and original. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill proved to have great chemistry together. They worked off one another to create some pretty good screwball/slapstick comedy. Hollywood was so impressed by their endevour that they green-lit a sequel for 2014. 

After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) when they go deep undercover at a local college to try to stop a synthetic drug operation.  

22 Jump Street is a very meta film, in that it's a sequel about sequels and often analyses the cynical appeal of a sequel. The investigation is so similar to the last that the main characters point it out any chance they get. At the beginning of the film Capt. Dickson (Ice Cube) claims that sequels are always "worse the second time around" but they get a much bigger budget. Indeed the script points out this "bigger budget" at every opportunity they get. They poke fun at Jump Street’s expensive new headquarters and have the boys crashing into various objects with no consequences (until later in the film when they're low on budget and have to avoid hitting objects) 

I'm not sure indirectly telling one's audience not to expect much out of this sequel is the best way of promoting it. It's clever, but a few steps above just telling them to get a refund. 22 Jump Street both indulges in- and makes fun of- societal masculine codes. It takes the homoerotic energy bubbling under the surface of buddy action flicks and raises it into the sunlight. In one scene the duo visits a counselor in order to save their partnership. Although this "we're not gay!" gag eventually becomes repetitive to the point of boredom, and one wonders if it's borderline homophobic. 

22 Jump Street is silly and has some very funny gags, but unfortunately many of the gags are repeated so often that they become stale by the end of the film. It's an entertaining film, much like 21 Jump Street was, but this sequel was indeed worse than the original. The first 20 minutes and the credits are worth watching, but the rest can be skipped. 2.5/5