Runtime: 109 minutes
Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum
Director: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
This is one of the movies that lived up to the hype. It is, by far, the funniest movie this year - there's so much great stuff to talk about in this movie! I wasn't high on this movie until I saw the red band trailer come out and I couldn't wait to see this and holy hell, it was worth the wait and money!
The plot is simple - two very different cops become buddies and after an arresting debacle, get demoted to 21 Jump Street - an undercover police force. Their mission is to find the supplier of a new synthetic drug going around the local high school. The plot is really just background noise - the real meat of the movie is the jokes and the characters. Tatum and Hill have a really good rapport with each other - it's really fun to see these two very different actors (and characters) become friends and go through some shit together. The character arc for these two guys is actually very well written and surprisingly touching. But in the end, the comedy trumps everything and this movie has it in spades.
I don't even know where to begin - there's so many great jokes and gags. Davey Franco (James Franco's little brother - and cat hater) is great as the main drug dealer and Ice Cube plays the no-nonsense police chief so perfectly. There's a lot of winking and nodding at the camera in this movie - it knows it's not an original Hollywood movie and that it's playing on its nostalgia. The line where Ice Cube is talking about the 21 Jump Street project saying "Since they can't come up with any new ideas, they resurrected this old project from the 80s" is a great example of how the movie knows where it's place is. But those jokes really are funny and work and the movie is much better for it.
The dialogue is great and there's so many great one liners - "Fuck you, Science!" is one of them. This comes during a trip-out scene where it's really funny. Normally those scenes are just an excuse to throw any weird stuff up at the screen and see what works, but this one's really, really good. Plus there's an obvious Johnny Depp cameo which I won't spoil, but suffice to say it's the best and funniest cameo in a movie since Bill Murray's untimely demise in Zombieland.
The ending action sequence gets a little tired and I'm really not a huge fan of Rob Riggle and his character in the movie. That was truly the only off-putting part of the movie - I was ready to wrap things up and the car chase scene at the end was not very good. But that's a minor annoyance when compared to the awesomeness this movie has to offer.
All in all, this movie is great - great characters, decent plot and hilarious jokes. It's highly quotable and just really fun to watch. Like twenty times. Even if you're not a fan of Hill, this movie is beyond that - it's just a great action/comedy movie that is near-perfect in its execution.
Rating: See It!
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