22 Jump Street review

Genre: Comedy, Action, Buddy-Cop
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Peter Stormare, Ice Cube, Amber Stevens, Wyatt Russell, Nick Offerman.
Year Of Release: 2014
Certificate: 15 (UK)
Runtime: 112 Minutes
Director: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Synopsis: "After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college." IMDB

Not going to jump on the hype, I will be straight up honest none of the trailers done it for me, just felt like recycled jokes from the first and an unneeded sequel. So now you know my thoughts going in, here is my "review" I guess.

So here we are round two in a franchise, a franchise in my eyes I couldn't see progressing after the first, not that I didn't enjoy the first it was a surprisingly enjoyable watch so I was worried about the second. You know sequels usually don't live up and Comedy sequels in recent years have been extremely poor "The Hangover Part II & III" spring to mind quicker than you can say "Why was Justin Bartha even in it?". There it is a sequel to a reboot of a TV Series, wow who'd have thought it ha. The first was a shockingly good success, which now a days means they have to make a sequel.

It is a very stupid concept to stick to your formula to an exact, however the guys behind the success of 21 decided to stick with it even with their bigger budget, however the big budget didn't get to their heads they stayed true to their nob gags, slapstick and the fact Jenko (Tatum) is a few bullets short of a full clip. All we truly care about with a film like this is over the top action, the Comedy that borders on idiotic and enjoyable characters, so three ticks there.

However, plot is one of the last things you care about when watching a film of this calibre. That being said here is a brief outline without giving away to much. The film revolves around Jenko and Schmidt trying to track down the latest drug craze sweeping the school scene (of wait we're in college now) WHY-FHY, huge over lying element is the dealer may be Jenko's new best bud Zook (Russell). This time around we get to see Jenko in his element like, while Schmidt is swimming in the deep waters fearing their border line homoerotic bromance is over.

Tatum and Hill have a brilliant on screen relationship, from the get go their on screen presence is as good as it was in 21 along with a barrage of self-referential humour from Jenko joking about protecting the White House to pretty much EVERYTHING Deputy Chief Hardy (Offerman) says. However, Tatum and Hill aren't the only ones on top of their game in the film, every scene that Ice Cube has playing Captain Dickson he steals and makes his own, so many times do you forget how insanely funny his character is when he gets angry and this time around he is even angrier.

Overall, the film is so much better than I expected I went in expecting one or two laughs here or there boy was I wrong I laughed pretty much the whole way through. You will be in pain from pure laughter, however I do have one complaint and that is the film is a bit too long, just as you finally feel like it's dragging there is a truly incredible credits scene that will make the dragging feeling disappear in an instance. I've seen some fellow reviewers saying "bigger AND better" however, in my honest opinion, bigger doesn't always mean better, they should be saying "bigger yet equally as funny".

7/10