New Release: 21 Jump Street

I had no idea what to expect seeing this movie - the trailers seemed mixed.  It could either have been really funny or they could have shown all the funny stuff in the trailer.  Thankfully, they stuck to the first 15 or so minutes of humor for the trailer and left another 90 minutes of dick and balls jokes, many of which were really really funny.

I expected it to be a really male driven comedy, but I honestly didn't expect the level of raunchiness of it all.  I guess we can assume Jonah Hill's Oscar nomination was more of a fluke than we knew.  He's much thinner, but still relies heavily on the kind of sophomoric humor that made him famous.  This is Superbad goes to Police Academy.  Hill and Channing Tatum were high school opposites - the "not-so-Slim-Shady" and the dumb prom king, respectively.  However, they realized at the Police Academy that they could help each other with the parts of the job they found difficult.  They become really close friends and make it through together.

However, they're INSANELY juvenile, dry humping their first perp after hand cuffiing him, and forgetting to read his Miranda rights so he gets released.  They get dumped on "Jump Street", a unit that uses police officers that look young enough to blend into high schools undercover.  They infiltrate a drug ring at a local high school run by Dave Franco (James Franco's younger brother, who has stolen all his brother's tricks).  They accidentally switch identities and Tatum is assigned to AP Chemistry and befriends the geeks, and Hill goes to theater and track.  However, high school has changed since they went to school - all the things that made Tatum hot stuff and prom king no longer work, and the geeks rule the school so Hill finally gets the chance to relive high school.

They screw up a LOT, but of course save the day in the end.  It's really funny and I laughed out loud many times, but mostly from shock or disbelief than any sort of really good humor.  Cheap fun, and lots of it, but overall, that's about it.  3.5 of 5 stars/lambs.