Review of 21 Jump Street (2012) by Brett C — 02 Feb 2015

21 Jump Street looks goofy when you look at it's poster, I did not watch the trailer before watching this film, but as soon as the plot moves forward it starts to get a little better. The film has great comedic actors, which was the main reason I was hooked to watching this in the first place, and is handled by new directors which grabbed my curiosity.

21 Jump Street's plot is not hard to follow, as found on most comedies, but what drives the film along is the references to either the TV show from the 80s or the life of high school students in the 90s. My main issue with the plot is that it feels forced and the writers didn't find a clever way to make it more layered and subtle. The characters in this film at least feel fresh, for the most part, and the film's dialogue does rely on being a little raunchy and unexpected. The buddy cop format has been tackled many times and they did just enough here to make it enjoyable.

The film was directed by first time live-action directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, their first film was Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. Their transition to live-action has definitely shown that they can take a material that has a high tendency to become very cliche and campy, and make it unique. The directors definitely wanted to push beyond people's expectations and make them think "what the fuck just happened?" while retaining that comic quality. The best qualities of this film is the tripping out sequence as it's really in your face, comedy that I also found in films like Fight Club. Lord and Miller kept the film at a quick pace, and I think this was a great decision because if it dragged even a bit, the audience can start to see beyond the surface of the film and find it's flaws. In delivering it's comedic timing, it relies on using sudden jump cuts that work only a couple at times.

This film won't win any awards or turn heads on Barry Peterson's photography but it does get the job done. Not a moment I felt the film looked stale or cliche but it does feel generic and commonplace. Peterson and the directors loves to have shots focusing on the actors faces as the main focus of the film is to deliver the comedy, and a lot of the comedy comes from the delivery of the punch lines and the reactions to it.

Mark Mothersbaugh's score here did not win me over. It felt lazy and uninspired. This would have been a great opportunity to create a score that feels over the top and trippy, as this would complement the style that Lord and Miller was going for.

One of the other highlights of this film is the chemistry between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, as they play each other off well and bring personality to these characters in order to prevent them from being stereotypical and one-dimensional. Hill and Tatum's banter is fantastic but the dick jokes does get a little old at times. The dramatic moments though did feel a little over the top from them and I wish a little more came from their performance. Brie Larson is the love interest of Jonah Hill in this film. Larson is fantastic in this as she plays it cool and at times do feel like a high school student from this generation. She was a great casting choice as she is more cute and girl next door type rather than those stereotypically sexy high school girls. Dave Franco was great but nothing different from his other performances like in Scrubs. Rob Riggle did surprise me though as his improvisation in his lines are clever and does catch you off guard. Ice Cube was definitely over the top and did bring down the film a little bit, his comedy just didn't hit me as it did with the others.

21 Jump Street doesn't break any new ground but it does have enough to be enjoyable and at times unique. I definitely did not expect the comedy that would be presented in this and it did a great job in keeping me interested until the end. I'm interested to see the sequel but I hope Lord and Miller correct their mistakes from this film with 22 Jump Street.