21 Jump Street

Part action. Part drama. All comedy. This was the surprise of my quadruple feature. It was absolutely hilarious! With an unlikely character and actor pairing this was just a fun movie to watch. Beginning with the two characters in high school, we quickly see who they both were in high school, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) was an Eminem-wanna-be nerd and Jenko (Channing Tatum) is the cool, popular, dumb jock. Years later the two find each other again at the police academy and learn that they are better working as a team, Jenko helping Schmidt with the athletic parts of the police academy and Schmidt helping Jenko with the book parts of the academy. The roles fluctuate throughout the movie and make for an entertaining time at the theater.

Both actors give stellar performances in a pairing I thought for sure would flop. Jonah Hill proves that without his weight he is still funny, something many people believed impossible. And Channing Tatum was spot-on. Just a perfect fit for this movie and he proved that he could actually act. Dave Franco, playing Eric Molson, was convincing as a cool "aware" teen. The smaller roles were full of various hilarious actors including Ice Cube, Nick Offerman, and even a cameo from everybody's favorite "21 Jump Street" veteran, Johnny Depp.

The screenplay was enjoyable and the plot was entertaining. Obviously in an action-comedy there will be plot holes, but here they are not very noticeable. I don't want to give away too much so I'll just say that there are some very funny scenes revolving around Peter Pan. The whole idea behind Jump Street is to take young looking cops and put them back into high school to take down drug dealers and other "bad guys" in the area high schools. Every character has his or her moment and makes it count!

One of the funniest movies of the year, definitely see it if you enjoy any action comedy of the last ten years,  similar to the Rush Hour series. A big surprise for me so early in the year, but definitely worth watching multiple times.

8/10