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There’s a peculiar kind of pleasure to be found in watching Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, in 21 Jump Street , horsing around and generally acting like doofuses for our amusement. As rookie cops assigned to patrol — by bicycle — a city park, they’re more than ready to prove their tough-guy status: When they spot a bunch of biker guys experiencing the joys of cannabis beneath a tree, they strut toward the gang in their shorts and bike helmets, but not before flipping their kickstands down with a mighty thwack . Later, Hill says a fervent prayer in the Catholic church that serves as headquarters for the undercover unit to which the duo has been assigned, its sign outside reading, in mistranslated Korean, “Aroma of Christ Church.” Hill kneels in front of the crucifix, beginning his urgent plea with the words, “Hey, Korean Jesus…” That irreverent riff captures the tone of the whole picture — it’s a ramshackle thing, a goof on the idea that anyone might actually care about a movie based on an old TV show, or that anyone might actually care about a movie at all. For the first half, at least, 21 Jump Street gives us reason to care. In recent years, the mania for turning old TV shows into movies has waned — a good thing, particularly given the ungodly mess known as The Green Hornet . Still, movies inspired by TV shows are coming back with a tiny vengeance — we have Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows , to name just one, to look forward to later this spring. And for now, 21 Jump Street is a small puff of fresh air simply because it’s not, like umpteen other releases coming down the pike, based on a comic-book series. Instead, its inspiration is a show that made its debut on the then-fledgling Fox Network in 1987 (and also helped launch the career of Johnny Depp, long before he became buried under Burton’s makeup or obscured by pirate-y facial hair), although this 21 Jump Street has its own distinct, goofy flavor. The movie opens in 2005, when Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are still high school students. Schmidt is the smart, shlubby, unpopular one — he’s an Eminem nut with a crop of bottle-blond hair, which could be sort of cool if his braces didn’t ruin the whole effect. Jenko is the dumb, sleepy-eyed jock with lank, shaggy hair. When the school principal informs him that he can’t go to the prom and that it’s “time to pay the piper,” he squints at her dimly and murmurs, “I should pay who?” Fast-forward a few years, and these two have become first police academy buddies (Jenko, recognizing he could use some help in the smarts department, latches onto Schmidt) and then rookie officers. After botching that aforementioned pot bust, the two are reassigned to an undercover unit — headed by a hard-ass, and very funny, Ice Cube — in which their job is to pose as teenagers and find the source of a drug that’s sweeping the local high school. 21 Jump Street is at its best when directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller — the guys behind the much-loved 2009 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — just let Hill and Tatum run with the patent ridiculousness of the setup. (The script is by Michael Bacall, from a story by Bacall and Hill.) Hill is reasonably funny and relaxed here; even when he’s playing the loser-sadsack, he radiates more confidence than he has in the past, instead of just relying on shtick. He still has that unassuming, “Who, me?” demeanor, but he’s more fully in control of it than ever before. And Tatum, who has already proved to be a marvelous dramatic actor even in throwaway pictures like Dear John (he also recently starred in the megahit The Vow ), has the kind of comic timing that’s deceptively laid-back and sharp at the same time. His Jenko comes off as an easygoing galoot, which makes the idiot-savant observations he comes up with that much funnier. Schmidt, upon his return to high school, notes that all the things that made him uncool in his own high-school days (caring about the environment, being tolerant) have now become hip. Jenko agrees, and he doesn’t like it, looking for a place to lay the blame: “I know the cause. It’s Glee ,” he says definitively, like a Sherlock Holmes who’s spent too much time parked in front of the tube. Together Hill and Tatum are so much fun to watch that it’s disappointing when the story around them becomes overly cluttered and convoluted. To say 21 Jump Street loses the plot isn’t quite accurate: It’s a pretty loose-limbed affair from the get-go. But Lord and Miller insist on turning it into an action film, complete with elaborate car chases and shootouts that betray the spirit of silliness they laid out at the beginning. 21 Jump Street falters when it becomes too ambitious. Its finest moments — as when Schmidt and Jenko sternly forbid a bratty kid from feeding ducks in the park, which causes him to immediately (what else?) feed the ducks — are the ones that feel unplanned and tossed-off. In those moments, 21 Jump Street shows a kind of wayward, pigeon-toed brilliance. Maybe that particular brand of half-assed genius is too evanescent to survive a whole movie. Then again, half an ass is better than none. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
There’s a peculiar kind of pleasure to be found in watching Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, in 21 Jump Street , horsing around and generally acting like doofuses for our amusement. As rookie cops assigned to patrol — by bicycle — a city park, they’re more than ready to prove their tough-guy status: When they spot a bunch of biker guys experiencing the joys of cannabis beneath a tree, they strut toward the gang in their shorts and bike helmets, but not before flipping their kickstands down with a mighty thwack . Later, Hill says a fervent prayer in the Catholic church that serves as headquarters for the undercover unit to which the duo has been assigned, its sign outside reading, in mistranslated Korean, “Aroma of Christ Church.” Hill kneels in front of the crucifix, beginning his urgent plea with the words, “Hey, Korean Jesus…” That irreverent riff captures the tone of the whole picture — it’s a ramshackle thing, a goof on the idea that anyone might actually care about a movie based on an old TV show, or that anyone might actually care about a movie at all. For the first half, at least, 21 Jump Street gives us reason to care. In recent years, the mania for turning old TV shows into movies has waned — a good thing, particularly given the ungodly mess known as The Green Hornet . Still, movies inspired by TV shows are coming back with a tiny vengeance — we have Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows , to name just one, to look forward to later this spring. And for now, 21 Jump Street is a small puff of fresh air simply because it’s not, like umpteen other releases coming down the pike, based on a comic-book series. Instead, its inspiration is a show that made its debut on the then-fledgling Fox Network in 1987 (and also helped launch the career of Johnny Depp, long before he became buried under Burton’s makeup or obscured by pirate-y facial hair), although this 21 Jump Street has its own distinct, goofy flavor. The movie opens in 2005, when Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are still high school students. Schmidt is the smart, shlubby, unpopular one — he’s an Eminem nut with a crop of bottle-blond hair, which could be sort of cool if his braces didn’t ruin the whole effect. Jenko is the dumb, sleepy-eyed jock with lank, shaggy hair. When the school principal informs him that he can’t go to the prom and that it’s “time to pay the piper,” he squints at her dimly and murmurs, “I should pay who?” Fast-forward a few years, and these two have become first police academy buddies (Jenko, recognizing he could use some help in the smarts department, latches onto Schmidt) and then rookie officers. After botching that aforementioned pot bust, the two are reassigned to an undercover unit — headed by a hard-ass, and very funny, Ice Cube — in which their job is to pose as teenagers and find the source of a drug that’s sweeping the local high school. 21 Jump Street is at its best when directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller — the guys behind the much-loved 2009 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — just let Hill and Tatum run with the patent ridiculousness of the setup. (The script is by Michael Bacall, from a story by Bacall and Hill.) Hill is reasonably funny and relaxed here; even when he’s playing the loser-sadsack, he radiates more confidence than he has in the past, instead of just relying on shtick. He still has that unassuming, “Who, me?” demeanor, but he’s more fully in control of it than ever before. And Tatum, who has already proved to be a marvelous dramatic actor even in throwaway pictures like Dear John (he also recently starred in the megahit The Vow ), has the kind of comic timing that’s deceptively laid-back and sharp at the same time. His Jenko comes off as an easygoing galoot, which makes the idiot-savant observations he comes up with that much funnier. Schmidt, upon his return to high school, notes that all the things that made him uncool in his own high-school days (caring about the environment, being tolerant) have now become hip. Jenko agrees, and he doesn’t like it, looking for a place to lay the blame: “I know the cause. It’s Glee ,” he says definitively, like a Sherlock Holmes who’s spent too much time parked in front of the tube. Together Hill and Tatum are so much fun to watch that it’s disappointing when the story around them becomes overly cluttered and convoluted. To say 21 Jump Street loses the plot isn’t quite accurate: It’s a pretty loose-limbed affair from the get-go. But Lord and Miller insist on turning it into an action film, complete with elaborate car chases and shootouts that betray the spirit of silliness they laid out at the beginning. 21 Jump Street falters when it becomes too ambitious. Its finest moments — as when Schmidt and Jenko sternly forbid a bratty kid from feeding ducks in the park, which causes him to immediately (what else?) feed the ducks — are the ones that feel unplanned and tossed-off. In those moments, 21 Jump Street shows a kind of wayward, pigeon-toed brilliance. Maybe that particular brand of half-assed genius is too evanescent to survive a whole movie. Then again, half an ass is better than none. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
It wasn’t tough to spot Channing Tatum or Jonah Hill at the after party following the SXSW premiere of 21 Jump Street ; they were the ones, beaming unselfconsciously in the middle of the crowd, wearing bicycle-cop uniforms. More specifically, wearing their costumes from the movie, in which they play a pair of bumbling rookie policemen sent undercover to high school — a set-up that so delivers beyond its premise that the ’80s Johnny Depp TV series adaptation is actually one of the best new films of 2012, comedy or otherwise. Sony’s March 16 release had screened a handful of times for press leading into the SXSW premiere, establishing surprisingly strong word of mouth for months. Catching up with 21 Jump Street directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord after the film’s equally supportive public debut found the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs helmers in fantastic spirits, and with good reason: If audiences follow the lead of critics and SXSWers, then 21 Jump Street could become a deserving critical and commercial hit in the mold of last year’s Austin breakout Bridesmaids . Credit goes to an exceedingly sharp script and great chemistry between leads Hill and Tatum, whose onscreen two-man comedy team rapport carries what might, in a lesser film, have been reduced to a fairly banal by-the-numbers plot (the pair go undercover in search of the source of a powerful and dangerous drug making the rounds in the high school set). The reboot takes its job seriously than, say, the Starsky and Hutches that came before it; if you’re wondering how the hell anyone could justify resuscitating a decades-old idea from the depths of nostalgia, for example, the film beats you to it. If you’re skeptical of seeing Ice Cube as Tatum and Hill’s angry black police captain, Cube’s Captain Dickson clears the air in his very first scene. But 21 Jump Street isn’t just clever in its construction and aware of its own inherent vulnerabilities to criticism — it’s pretty hilarious to boot. Two of the best jokes in my estimation come not from Tatum, who is genuinely funny and, more importantly, comfortable flexing his comic muscles here, or Hill, but from supporting players Dave Franco as the crunchy, Berkeley-bound popular kid and 21-year-old lady rapper Rye Rye as a fellow undercover Jump Streeter. The film even manages to use Rob Riggle well without succumbing to the near-universal rule that almost any comedy featuring the (talented!) Riggle turns out to be kind of terrible. Curse broken! Monday’s 21 Jump Street debut also marks yet another strong showing for a studio release at SXSW after Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s Cabin in the Woods and the surprise horror entry Sinister . Drop back by Movieline on Thursday for Stephanie Zacharek’s review of 21 Jump Street , and catch up on all of our SXSW 2012 coverage here . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
21 Jump Street : Not the first ’80s series that comes to mind when I think of revival-worthy properties in 2011, but it appears that Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Nick Offerman and Ice Cube are making it work in the new movie’s red band trailer . Original stars Johnny Depp and Holly Robinson-Peete are rumored to make appearances, and even if they don’t, there’s enough starpower to make this Never Been Kissed -esque high school infiltration a worthwhile venture. Mysteriously, the funniest line delivery in the whole clip belongs to a very supporting player. Click through for the full, NSFW (language) clip.
Let’s hear it for Jonah Hill! The newly thin comedy star has taken to his official Twitter account like a duck to water — or like an impostor to Twitter , as the case may sometimes be — offering fans a peek behind the curtain at the making of 21 Jump Street . On Tuesday’s docket: The firing range. “Let’s shoot some bad guys, motherf***er!” Hill wrote . Click ahead to see the slightly NSFW picture of Hill, post-bad guys-shooting. (This is assuming that flipping someone the bird is not suitable for your office.)
