21 Jump Street (2012)

  Rob and Christy conspired against me and forced me to watch this movie.  As many of you know, I hate, loathe, and despise Channing Tatum as an actor.  Jonah Hill isn't high on my list of favorites either.

When I heard that they were making a movie based on the old 80's show 21 Jump Street, I wasn't even mildly interested.  I never saw the show and I didn't care about the property.  When I heard they cast the two male leads, I was even less interested.  I figured it would be a total flop and then quietly fade into the ether.  I was not prepared for the glowing critical reception.  Everyone said that this movie was a suprise comic smash, one of the biggest sleeper hits of the year. 

They were wrong.  Completely and utterly wrong.  I laughed precisely one time.  Once.  And it wasn't even an appropriate time to laugh.  **SPOILER ALERT** (It was when the two bikers reveal themselves to be, not just undercover DEA agents, but also undercover DEA agents played by Johnny Depp and Peter DeLouise from the original show and then Johnny Depp gets shot in the neck and dies.)  **END SPOILER**  That one part I found hilarious because it straight-up blindsided me but that doesn't make up for the rest of the movie.

Schmidt (Jonah Hill) was a high school loser in 1995.  He grows up to become a cop, possibly to fulfill some deep-seated need for respect, but almost immediately runs into his old high school tormentor Jenko (Channing Tatum), who is also becoming a cop, probably because he knows no one will take him seriously otherwise.  One is smart but bad at phsyical fitness and the other is stupid but a jock.  They band together and manage to graduate, thinking that from then on it will be all Miami Vice style car chases and drug busts.  Instead, they are bicycle cops at a park, and shitty ones at that.

One day, they spy a group of bikers from the 1% motorcycle gang smoking a joint.  Instead of calling for backup, they attempt to make the bust themselves.  They take down the leader but he is almost immediately released because Channing Tatum's moron character couldn't remember the Miranda rights.  Their chief (Nick Offerman) reassigns them to a recently revived high school undercover operation based out of a Korean church on Jump Street.  He makes what I am sure were supposed to be subtle clever references to the fact that the program was a reboot from the 80s that everyone thought wouldn't work wink wink nudge nudge.  D'ya get it?  It's just like the movie, because it's a reboot from the 80's!  They're so clever!

Under the command of Cpt Dickson (Ice Cube), the two nitwits infiltrate a high school where a new synthetic drug has been created.  Unfortunately, high school has completely changed in the 7 years they've been away.  Environmentalism and social consciousness are in, beating up nerds is out.  Jenko is completely out of his depth and finds himself hanging with the science geeks while Schmidt is adopted by the cool kids, led by douchenozzle Eric (Dave Franco, James Franco's little brother).  Of course Eric is running the drugs but the two mall cop rejects need to find out his supplier.  Meanwhile, their friendship is put to the test when Jenko overhears Schmidt badmouthing him to appear cooler to his douchey new friends.  Just like in every other high school movie ever.  They have a huge fight during a production of Peter Pan and both of them get expelled and subsequently fired by Ice Cube.

Of course, that only makes them more determined to track down the supplier.  To this end, they get dressed up, buy a box of live doves, and hire hookers to be prom dates for the science geeks.  Like The Girl Next Door only derivitive and not funny. 

I have never been a fan of what I call frat-boy humor.  It takes a very special film to make that kind of juvenile humor funny to me like Detroit Rock City, Fired Up, or Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.  I don't know why those three make the cut, but they do.  Christy and Rob seemed to enjoy it for what it was so maybe you will too, but I saw nothing here that changed my mind about any of the actors in it.