ACTION COMEDY; 1hr 52min
STARRING: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum
Poetry in motion: from left, Hill and Tatum
Having relocated across the street to Number 22, police officers Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) waste no time doing pretty well what they did in 2010’s 21 Jump Street : enrolling undercover as college students in a flat-footed effort to take down an elusive drug dealer. Since the only clue to their quarry is a tattoo, progress is slow to non-existent; instead, Schmidt gets cosy with a hot artistic chick (Amber Stevens) and Jenko pals up with frat boys.
None of this is helping the investigation but what do we care when all these guys have to do to make an impact is walk into a room together? The fussy dumpling and the try-hard jock are a mean teaming, with their exasperated boss, Captain Dixon (Ice Cube), spicing up the soufflé. Meanwhile, there are emotional partnership issues to be ironed out between the incongruous twosome, and something approximating police work to be sorted. The whole, squiffy shooting match is given class-clown treatment by directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (back on board from 21) and played with commendably straight faces by one and all. How, I can’t begin to imagine.
