22 Jump Street

Oh Phil Lord and Chris Miller, you've done it again. I love you both. Come give me a hug.

Lord and Miller have proven themselves to be brilliant parody film makers, what with their recent jabs at disaster films (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), toy related films (The LEGO Movie), or campy 80s action TV (21 Jump Street). 22 Jump Street manages to parody not just college comedy, later action films, and buddy cop movies, but also cinema as a whole. And I freakin love it. There's jokes referencing the films budget, the fact that there is a sequel at all to something as ridiculous as a reboot of the TV series, the idea that no one wants to see anything new so they should just do the same thing again. I particularly love one shot of the movie that shows the duo driving through a building, no damage shown, only to have them pop out the other side and Tatum to say "Did you see all of that expensive stuff we broke?!" 

The two filmmakers show a superior sense of timing and camera work, mixed with brilliant comedic sensibility from Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. It makes a beautiful demonstration of how talented everyone is in this film. The duo on screen his hilarious thanks to brilliant writing, but the brilliant writing shines through even stronger by an amazing sense of the script from the duo. I don't think i've seen a better demonstration of teamwork between film maker and actor, at least not in such an obvious light. 

The movie continues in its wonderfully updated-but-not-updated plot line enough to give us exactly what we want to see. But then it becomes more, finally letting itself become something special and original. It lets us see the original thematic material from the first movie (the idea that one of them fits right into the culture while the other has a significantly harder time), but flips it. And from there, we don't see necessarily one being jealous of the other as in the first, but rather them following different paths in college as best high school friends often do. It results in a pretty hilarious breakup, and lets the film parody romance films in the mix of the dozens of other film references its already making. Seriously, this movie can just pack in the parody. All of it works brilliantly. 

The audience was loud and rowdy where I was, laughing and cheering appropriately, gasping and silent when appropriate. It was electric. It's clear that Lord and Miller know how to make a movie that really is going to appeal to everyone. That being said, I was the only one laughing at the jokes about film budget and scenic design. But whatever! I'll have my fun dammit. 

Rank - 5/5