22 Jump Street

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.25 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: 22 Jump Street is the sequel to a movie reboot of a 1980s TV series. It makes no pretense of not being the exact same film as the first, but with twice the budget. Only this time the 30-something-year-old cops are going undercover at college instead of high school.

Nick: The film felt more like a Funny or Die skit parodying the idea of sequels. The jokes in the film would work better in a skit than a feature length film.

Dustin: The film had a lot of self-referential jokes throughout. Most of them had to do with how sequels are usually larger-budget, rehashed versions of the first film. This came into play when they mentioned the new headquarters in an abandoned Vietnamese church at 22 Jump St. (across the street from their original headquarters--even the title is a meta joke) costed twice as much “for no reason,” and they go undercover in what is basically the same operation as the first film.

Nick: Don’t forget that the Vietnamese church is now being rebuilt at 23 Jump Str., opening next year.

Dustin: I liked the meta humor, but they sort of overdid it. The first film had it, but not to such an extent. This film relied on it for most of the jokes. After awhile I was like, “OK, I get it. This is a sequel and will follow the same formula as the first. Next joke, please.”

Nick: All the jokes in the film stemmed from three areas. Either they came from meta, how old they were (not unusual in college), or how every guy is subconsciously homosexual. All these jokes were funny at first, but all of the jokes come so fast it starts to wear thin they couldn’t write a subtle joke.

Dustin: I thought the jokes about the latent homosexuality were pretty good. They weren’t overdone. It was just how their professional relationship paralleled a gay relationship. Channing Tatum even takes a human sexuality course and learns sensitivity toward gays. One funny scene had them talking about “investigating other people” as if they were splitting up, and Jonah Hill’s body language is very insecure and feminine. This stuff worked for me. But the joke that they looked too old to be college freshmen was beaten to death.

Nick: The latent homosexuality comes from more than just the two main characters. Tat-yum’s relationship with his bro quarterback was a major one. I actually liked their relationship and was hoping they’d be gay. Hill’s character is always hooking up with some girl, but Tat-yums is always being fawned over by everyone. It would have been funny if he grabbed the bro quarterback at the end and kissed him. On to the college freshmen bit, Jillian Bell is one of the funniest women I have seen in a long time. On Workaholics she is my favorite part. Bell’s whole role in the film is to talk about how old Hill’s character looks and then have some awkward fight with him. Her old jokes happened quite often.

Dustin: Yeah, in pretty much every one of her scenes. But the part when they’re fighting and she keeps giving him lovey-dovey eyes and leaning in to kiss him were pretty funny.

Nick: The fact she seems disgusted with Hill’s looks throughout the film makes the fact she tried to hook up with him later more annoying for the fact I had to listen to all of her old jokes about him.

Dustin: Do you think the meta humor was sort of a cop-out? Like they knew the criticisms of the film beforehand and dismissed them humorously, but then went ahead with all the cliches anyway? I think saying, “Don’t blame us, we’re not REALLY trying,” is not an excuse to be lazy with the story.

Nick: I’m 100 percent sure! I read in interview with Hill and Tatum where they both stated having no interest in doing sequels, which is quite true looking at their resumes (Hill’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 came out this week, but his is a small role). Also, the directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) love meta humor and seemingly dislike sequels. While I like the idea, it could have been done with a little more grace.

The funniest scenes for me were Jonah Hill’s first walk of shame and Tatum’s reaction to Ice Cube finding out the identity of Hill’s girlfriend. Both scenes had fantastic camerawork and editing. Everything from close-ups to far shots and in the latter switching between characters, which brought out the most humor from the situation.

Dustin: This was a funny two hours spent, but it didn’t live up to the originality of the first film (because they didn’t really try).