Movie Reviews: "21 Jump Street"

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: 21 Jump Street


It’s funny. That’s the two-word consensus of just about every newspaper film critic in the nation’s largest markets.

Each has his/her own variation of stating that, some more enthusiastically than others, but there’s no denying that it’s one of the best-reviewed movies of the year.

In particular, critics are praising the performances of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as two undercover police officers sent back to high school to catch druggies.





Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times writes:

“Though Tatum is rock hard and Hill is squishy soft, both bring a kind of vulnerability to their characters that makes whatever mayhem they are up to Ok.”





Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News says:

“Tatum and Hill are totally winning.”





Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal comments on a frequently addressed plot-point:

“What? The two actors don’t look like teenagers, you say? Well that’s a situation Michael Bacall’s clever script addresses frequently by noting its patent absurdity.”





Likewise, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times observes:

“It often strikes me that the actors in high school movies look too old. But they look really too old, and the movie isn’t shy about pointing that out. Indeed, one of the pleasures of '21 Jump Street' is that the screenplay by Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill is happy to point out all of its improbabilities; the premise is preposterous to begin with, and they run with that.”





A.O. Scott in the New York Times compares the new film to the tv show:

“Of course, the original television show was not funny. But, there is nevertheless a genetic connection between that show and this movie. On tv '21 Jump Street' was an hour-long youth-targeted Fox prime-time offering that mixed whimsy, emotion and public-service-announcement sobriety as it confronted social ills like bullying, bigotry and drug abuse.

The movie takes aggressive satirical aim at exactly this kind of piety without risking true offensiveness.”





Peter Hartlaub in the San Francisco Chronicle writes:

“The film is even better if you come in with no spoilers and low expectations.”





Kyle Smith in the New York Post has few reservations about it at all, calling it:

“flat-out the funniest movie I’ve seen in more than a year.”

-IMDB News