Let’s be real for a second. When 21 Jump Street hit theaters in 2012, nobody expected it to be good. We all braced for a cynical cash grab cashing in on '80s nostalgia. Instead, we got the funniest buddy-cop movie in a decade.
Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are back. After their success at high school, the police department... sends them to college. That’s it. The movie literally hangs a lantern on it in the first five minutes. 22.jump.street
22 Jump Street shouldn’t work. It’s a sequel to a reboot of a property nobody cared about. But by embracing its own absurdity, it becomes a rare beast: a comedy sequel that is just as good—arguably better —than the original. Let’s be real for a second
In the now-iconic briefing room scene, Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) deadpans: "We did that. You do the same exact thing. Go to college." Instead, we got the funniest buddy-cop movie in a decade
So, when 22 Jump Street dropped in 2014, the expectations were sky-high. How do you follow a miracle? You don’t. Instead, you blow up the formula, laugh at it, and then set the ashes on fire.
It’s stupid. It’s smart. It’s bromantic. And it proves that Channing Tatum is a national treasure of physical comedy.