22 Jump Street (2014)

22 Jump Street (R) - Review

"If your friends jumped from a bridge...?"

The unlikely duo of Shmidt and Jenko are back and doing the same thing all over again in this improvisational sequel to the surprise 2012 hit.  Jonah Hill (Wolf of Wall Street) and Channing Tatum (Side Effects) team up under perpetual grump Ice Cube to once again fight drugs, except now in college.  Spoofing the cliches and overdone plot points of movie sequels themselves (returning supporting characters, expanded budgets, reworked plots), 22J is a self-referential snark that will make you laugh out loud.  Yet some of the liquid gold has leaked from this franchise's Red Solo cup, draining it down to a just above average adult beverage from the overflowing bounty of the original.

"Same thing, again" apparently didn't make its way to the script department, for where the first film eschewed traditional remakes by lampooning characters/plots with outrageous improv comedy and smart twists on High School clique conventions, 22 toes the line of "college movie" tropes, drunk Frat boy jocks and wimpy Art School intellectuals that are standard issue college flick trope since the 1980s.   Jenko and Shmidt suffer the 1st sequel blues (on purpose and as predicted right from the start by scruff-machismo-meister Nick Offerman), and the action feels a bit lacking despite the onscreen winks to doubled budgets.  Even the original cast member cameo is reduced to a while-credits-roll one liner, and there are a stunning number of laughs locked into that credit sequence, where Hollywood franchises are met with scorn as future inevitable titles are screamed past the audience (23, 33,34,44, etc).  Perhaps the pathos of their bromance breakup goes on too long, perhaps the action never lives up to the promised sequelitis of "same but bigger", perhaps the Spring Break sequence should have been expanded into more of a third act focus on skewering Hollywoodized college life instead of just a limited set piece.  Jokes like "Art Degree?  You won't make much money with that" and a slew of tired Old Jokes (mostly performed by actors who also aren't College age) show off the semi-lazy writing here.  This is in stark contrast to the cool freshness of 21, but the charm and fun of Channing and Hill elevate the somewhat average semester, and if you laugh hard enough you'll still be able to get a nice buzz from the contact high.

6.5 Trash Compactors of Sadness out of 10 (GOOD)