Back in high school, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) was a dork (his Eminem look had me in bits) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) was the popular jock. After graduation, both of them join the police force and as fate would have it, end up as partners….on bicycle patrol in the city park. After a bungled arrest due to the pair not knowing thus ‘forgetting’ to read a perp his Miranda rights and the fact they still look young enough to be in high school, they are assigned to an undercover unit situated on Jump Street, to infiltrate a drug ring that is supplying high school student’s synthetic drugs.
Here we are introduced to Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) in a scene that, even after 40-50 viewings, still has me genuinely laughing out loud due to Cube’s dialogue and his fantastic delivery. He goes on to tell Jenko and Schmidt that they are going undercover as brothers at the local high school, their mission is this: ‘Infiltrate the dealers, find the suppliers’!
There aren’t many movies where I am giggling throughout but this was one of them, I am not sure if I am just a big kid (probably) but I found the most stupid of things brilliantly funny and just had to keep watching them over and over – the Captain Dickson scene being one of the main ones.
This movie is pure popcorn, Hill’s performance was great, strange in a way as he sort of plays the straight man of the two but the main highlight for me comes in shape of Channing Tatum, who transcended from a jock to a nerd and still maintained his persona and was hilarious throughout both with his dialogue and what he did visually – trust me you will know what I mean when he interrupts the school band practice session.
What was great about this movie was the fact that you didn’t need any prior knowledge of the series. I mean, I was never really a fan of the original series, yes, I had an awareness of what is was about and that Johnny Depp was in it, but here the directors and writers ensure that you don’t need any knowledge or I’d argue, even an awareness of the series to get this and still find it as funny as I did.
A nice touch for fans of the series is a cameo by Depp and Peter DeLuise who plays his partner. So to sum up, grab the popcorn and prepare for couple of hours of pure fun.