Review of 21 Jump Street (2012) by Caitlin L — 14 Jun 2016

Every year comedies are released that attempt to be clever or to do something different but they often turn out clichéd and doesn't produce laughs. However 21 Jump Street is intelligent, very Meta and genuinely funny throughout. A reboot of a 80s TV show, it is as much a satire of Hollywood's trend to reboot for money as it is a comedy about school life.

The story follows Schmidt and Jenko, two young looking cops, as they are sent undercover into a high school to bust a dangerous drug operation. This set up provides plenty of opportunity for school related comedy, police action and buddy cop action-comedy. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum work well in the lead roles and their chemistry is what makes the film so humorous, in lesser hands some of the jokes just would not have worked. Their take on high school and what it means to be popular is actually quite interesting as well as being amusing. The film's strength is that it knows exactly what it is and instead of falling into genre clichés it makes fun of them. This self-awareness is right at the heart of the film creating strong comic material which, when handled by the talented cast, really works.

21 Jump Street is simply very funny but it has interesting ideas that make it really stand out. It is a blueprint of how to make an unnecessary unwanted reboot. In modern cinema, this is very refreshing.