22 Jump Street movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews...

22 Jump Street is the highly anticipated sequel to 2012's 21 Jump Street, and once again stars Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum as the leads. It also has Ice Cube & Nick Offerman returning in their roles, and has some new actors such as Peter Stormare. The film follows a similar plot to the first film, following both Schmidt and Jenko trying to stop another drug ring within a school. Only this time, the film is set in a college, not a high school.

Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum in 22 Jump Street

Going into 22 Jump Street, I was skeptical about what kind of film I was going to see. Mainly because sequels, especially comedy sequels, tend to feel like rehashes. However, like the first film, this movie is self-aware, with lots of references to the fact that the plot is essentially identical the the plot of the first film. Much like the first film, this movie had me in tears with some of the jokes, all the jokes land, and a few of them are absolute gold.

Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in 22 Jump Street

Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill still have the same absolutely stellar chemistry they had in the first film. All of their back and forth is hilarious, and the lines are well written and fantastically executed. Ice Cube has more of a prominent premise in the film, which makes for some of the best scenes in the film. There's this one scene, I won't spoil what the context is, but basically Ice Cube is raging out, and it's one of the funniest rage moments in a movie I've seen.

Ice Cube, Channing Tatum, & Jonah Hill in 22 Jump Street

I don't have a lot of issues with the film, which especially surprised me. I totally expected that I would come out of the film thinking it was a complete rehash, but the self-awareness made up for that. The only gripe I had with the film was that it didn't have the amount of funny characters the first film had. Like, the first film had Channing Tatum & Jonah Hill, but it also had the group of nerdy guys, Dave Franco's character, the gym teacher, the drama teacher, Jonah Hills parents, all of these great supporting characters to add to the comedy. Here, it's just Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, and some characters who appear in only one scene but then never show up again.

Final Rating
22 Jump Street is a hilarious film, and a great sequel. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill still have stellar chemistry, and the writing is fantastic. Although it doesn't have the amount of memorable characters the first film had, this is an awesome comedy. I was laughing so hard during this film, my jaw kind of hurt afterwards. If you like comedies, especially if you liked 21 Jump Street, you'll enjoy this movie.

22 Jump Street: 3.9/5