21 Jump Street

Plot: Two cops (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) go undercover at a high school trying to catch drug dealers, but end up partying and falling for girls. link to imdb   photos

Review: When I see a movie that I expect to be bad, and it turns out to be pretty good, then I am thrilled: that is the magic of low expectations.  21 Jump Street is exactly that; I thought this was going to be a stupid boy movie like The Hangover 2, but it was actually a little better and pretty funny.

What saved it was that the high school students were more realistic and intelligent. I liked that the cool kids had "crunchy, hippy" ideas, and made officers Schmidt and Jenko feel awkward and out-of-place. Instead of being competent and cool the cops were the subject of the jokes. Jonah Hill is especially good at that. 

Most of the jokes were about Channing Tatum trying to be a nerd, and Jonah Hill trying to make friends with girls, especially Brie Larson's Molly. Ice Cube as the police captain was great too.

This was not high cinema, and it was there was no love story. There were a lot of gay jokes, many dick jokes, but happily no fart jokes. The shooting scenes were surprisingly bloody. 

Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson

Directed by: Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Rating:   2.5 stars: pretty funny.

More: The original 21 Jump Street ran from 1987 to 1991 and it had Johnny Depp, who did a cameo in this film.  

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