by Preston Wilder
Comedy and horror (and tearjerkers, but they’re out of fashion now) may be the trickiest genres to review, just because they’re so results-oriented: you need to laugh, or scream, or weep into your hankie, in order to properly appreciate them. Most of the (many) rave reviews for 22 Jump Street include some variation on ‘I laughed till it hurt’ or, to quote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, “[I felt] guilty for laughing quite so much”. I, on the other hand, feel even more guilty, because I laughed at this sequel about as much as I laughed at its predecessor, 21 Jump Street – which is to say, hardly at all. Only two jokes (a split-screen gag and the end-credits sequence) made me chuckle out loud. The rest was silence.
This is my problem, not the movie’s. I can hardly demand that all comedies share my particular sense of humour (though it’d be nice if a few more American comedies did). Even from my un-amused vantage point I can see that the film is clever, inventive, etc. In the interests of fairness, therefore, I’ll attempt to write this review from the point of view of a man with a Different Sense of Humour (call him ‘DSH’ for short), as well as my own.
DSH: Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum), go to college (rather than high school) in what looks like a cash-in sequel to an unexpected hit – so the film, hilariously, comments on its own status as a cash-in sequel to an unexpected hit. “It’s always worse the second time around,” say our heroes, while the chief cop urges them to do “exactly the same thing” as last time. Later, in the midst of a chase with the usual Hollywood level of property destruction, Jenko comments on the cost of all this mayhem: “It looks cool, but it’s so wasteful!”. As they did earlier this year in The Lego Movie – a corporate plug that spoofed its own status as a corporate plug – directors Lord and Miller manage to bite the hand that feeds them, even as they’re getting fat from all the food. It’s super-smart.
ME: Maybe I have a quixotic view of comedy, but I like the idea of ‘pure’ humour that an alien or a six-year-old – someone with no real knowledge of the world – would find funny. In-jokes are nothing new, of course (Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were doing them in the Road movies 70 years ago), but this kind of knowing meta-humour seems insubstantial – even beyond the sour note of viewers congratulating themselves on ‘getting it’ (ergo being more sophisticated than other, clueless viewers). Besides, is it really so noteworthy that Hollywood makes crappy sequels? The more we dwell on this – even, ostensibly, to mock it – the more we validate the system, in my opinion.
DSH: The film is packed with gags, never letting up for an instant. Patton Oswalt turns up for a two-minute bit as a flaky professor who can say whatever he likes (“The Eiffel Tower is made of dildos!”) because he has tenure. There’s a pair of identical twins constantly riffing on each other’s sentences. Jenko – not the sharpest tool in the shed – points out that he “thought we had Cate Blanchett” (meaning ‘carte blanche’). Bromance jokes come thick and fast, playing on the notion of (cop) partners as (gay) partners: “Maybe we should just … investigate different people,” says Schmidt gently as the relationship heads for a break-up. Then there’s Captain Dickson (Ice Cube), splenetic at the best of times – “You two sons of bitches are going to college!” – building to a full-on meltdown in a family restaurant.
ME: Yes, but his meltdown kills the joke – a good joke (I won’t spoil it here) that would’ve been better served by sly innuendo and uncomfortable silence. Generally speaking, 22 Jump Street overplays everything. The aforementioned ‘break-up’ keeps going long after the point’s been made, ditto an early scene where Schmidt pretends to be Mexican and a scene in prison with Mr. Walters (from the first film) and Eric, who’s now his “bitch”. Speaking of which, there’s an insane amount of gay-related jokes here (talk of “tearing up those annals” is among the subtler ones). Maybe it’s a good thing, showing how open-minded we all are these days – but in that case, why are we laughing? And why so much of it?
DSH: It’s impossible to hate 22 Jump Street. Even if the jokes thud, the stars are likeable and the film’s intelligence (albeit a slick, snarky kind of intelligence) is obvious – whether it’s a quick aerial shot of cops on a rooftop, aping the Michael Bay style, or Schmidt trying to earn brownie points with Captain Dickson by flaunting his right-on credentials: “We care so much more because [the victim] is black.”
ME: Yeah, that was clever.
DSH: That’s the part where the boys meet Dickson to get their assignment – and of course there’s a meta-comment on the fact that they’re now meeting across the road from 21 Jump Street, at 22 Jump Street (handily, there’s an Asian church there as well). Then they glance next door, at 23 Jump Street, where condos are under construction – and Jenko adds that “next year” they might be meeting there, in the inevitable threequel. I can’t wait!
ME: I can.
DIRECTED BYPhil Lord & Christopher Miller
STARRING Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube
US 2014 112mins
