"22 Jump Street" Review

Following up the 21 Jump Street film reboot of the franchise, which was both a critical and financial success, it was no surprise that the film was followed up with a sequel with a less than surprising title: 22 Jump Street. But for those of you expecting this to be an awful copycat of the first film, you've come to the wrong place.

22 Jump Street delivers all the jokes and shenanigans viewers fell for in the first film and then some. There's an excellent balance between verbal humour and physical comedy, both of which are executed fantastically by all members of the cast and not just the two main leads. There are also cameos galore, the details of which I shall keep to myself in case you'd rather be surprised by the context upon seeing the film for yourself.

More important than the more light-hearted jokes are the ones that delve into deeper social issues. As some of you may remember, there was a hilariously tense moment between Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Capt. Dickson (Ice Cube) in which Dickson points out the racism of how news media covers tragedies. "Now as you can see, this kid is white. That means people actually give a shit," to which Schmidt replies, "Sir, I just wanna throw out to you that I would give a shit if he was black." This sort of humour is repeated in 22 Jump Street and expanded on. What makes this so brilliant is that the humour stems from a deeper understanding of the realities of racism today instead of using offensive racist stereotypes for cheap (white) laughs.

Despite the fact that this can be classified as an action film, it steers away from the lazy habit of that genre of exploiting womyn and their bodies for profit and baiting views. Admittedly, this film has very few female characters but what it does to make up for this is completely shatter the negative homophobic hyper-masculinity that runs rampant in American male gender norms.

The friendship between Schmidt and Jenko (Channing Tatum) is not short on speed bumps due to their vast differences in communication style, temperaments, interests, etc. When the character of Zook (Wyatt Russell) is introduced, Jenko hits it off with him with tremendous ease, as they have far more in common. From there, we see a very realistic portrayal of the struggles that come when one feels as if they are losing their friend to another. In learning to express their feelings while also being the "ass-kicking" cops, Hill and Tatum beautifully present a story that can hopefully teach hetero-male viewers that there is nothing wrong with having a heart-to-heart and expressing your feelings.

22 Jump Street is sure to have you laughing from start to finish, as it brilliantly satirises the abundance of sequels in Hollywood and the rightfully negative stigma attached to them. It's bigger, funnier, and has more depth than its predecessor and will leave you eager and entirely open to the idea of yet another sequel, should they decide to make one.

22 Jump Street is currently playing in theatres.