21/22 Jump Street

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Sometimes one is just in the mood to watch something a little over-the-top and ridiculous. But the question is, do you want it to be a comedy like, or an action movie? I say... Is it too much to ask for both?

A few years ago, there was talk about an upcoming 2012 movie reboot of '21 Jump Street'. Collectively, many of us rolled our eyes at yet another concept from the 80s coming back. But to be fair, I had never actually seen the show before. I just knew it was about cops and starred Johnny Depp before he got super famous. Although at that point he'd have at least been known.

A little while later, we got to see who would star in this feature; Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum of all combinations of people. It was hard to say if it would work. At this point Jonah Hill was flexing his acting chops with his Oscar nomination for 'Moneyball', and Channing Tatum wasn't quite awesome to the dudes yet, known best for roles in 'Step Up 2' and 'Dear John'. Who knew if this would work?

Continuing on, one does his or her research on whether a movie may be good or not based on who is writing and/or directing. In this case, it was being directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known best at the time for directing 'Clone High'. And the writers? Michael Bacall (story/screenplay) and Jonah Hill (story). At this point I was all set to check it out because Bacall was also responsible for penning the script to an all-time favourite of mine, 'Scott Pilgrim vs The World', which came out a couple of years earlier.

So, eventually I decided I kinda had to check out '21 Jump Street', and man, did it deliver. Jonah Hill was always pretty funny, but Tatum genuinely surprised a lot of us with his sense of humor. The pair actually ended up contrasting incredibly well. But the goodness does not stop there.

Added to the cast is Ice Cube, who plays Captain Dickson, and is probably the funniest character in the movie. Why? Well, let's just put it this way. '21 Jump Street' did for Ice Cube what 'Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle' did for Neil Patrick Harris; it completely resurrected him. Up until now, Ice Cube was mostly known for family pictures. This was to such an extent there's an outright joke about it in an episode of 'The Boondocks'. But 'Jump Street' brought him back, made him the N.W.A. Ice Cube we always used to love, and gave him the funniest lines throughout the whole movie. 

So, other than the cast and good writing and direction, there's one more thing about this movie that will probably sell you on it. If I'd have known about it way beforehand, I'd have been all over it from the get-go. The movie is straight up fourth wall-breaking. One doesn't really know that going in, but when Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are talking to Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman), they make it very obvious that the movie is totally self-aware. For me, it almost always makes a movie better if it is self-aware. Even if it's still a bad movie, it can make it more forgivable. But '21 Jump Street' was actually all-around good, and easily one of my favorite movies of 2012.

But then they were gonna come out with a sequel, which could have gone either way. The good news was that the entire team behind the first one got behind the second one. Amazingly enough, '22 Jump Street' practically parallels the first movie in terms of how funny, action-packed and self-aware it is. The funniest thing about it is that in it's self-awareness, it even practically attacks itself for doing the same thing they did in the first one and that it's actually pretty lame. It pretty much makes fun of itself for even existing. But we are able to eat it up because it's saying "Yeah, I exist, love me or hate me, I don't care". Turns out, most of us loved it just as much, if not more than the first.

Going back to the team behind it, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller also directed the pilot episode of 'Brooklyn Nine Nine', 'The LEGO Movie' and are slated to direct the upcoming Han Solo story for the 'Star Wars' universe! After realizing that they've worked on so much of what I've ended up loving, I'm greatly looking forward to how they tackle a 'Star Wars' story!

So, in closing, if you're looking for a couple of easy-to-watch goofy action comedies that break the fourth wall and AREN'T 'Deadpool', these two hilarious titles are a great place to start!

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