"21 JUMP STREET" - ALSO RELOADED

So, hand on heart, what do you guys make of the whole remake of ‘80s stuff phenomenon? I mean, it’s bad enough with the “never ending sequel” phenomenon but this is just ridiculous (I mean seriously, zombies for example. If I see another ad for “28 – insert time measurement of choice – Later” I will SCREAM). That is why, you may be surprised if you happened to check out www.imdb.com for the rating of 21 Jump Street – the 2012 film remake of the classic tv series – you might be mighty surprised to find out it’s 7.3. I wasn’t. I had already watched it, you see.

And honestly, when we started watching it with my friends, we didn’t expect much from it. We had just ordered pizza, we wanted a “silly” comedy to complete that extremely replete feeling you have lounging about on the couch after ingesting ridiculous amounts of pizza. We got the comedy bit right. The thing is, it was utterly brilliant. One of the best tribute / remakes ever and FUNNY. Yes, in block capitals.

Now, I’m pretty sure many of you remember the story of 21 Jump Street. But maybe you don’t. Besides, this is the film. Schmidt (Jonah Hill you may remember him from Moneyball actually, I thought he looked familiar!!) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are cops. They happen to be high school buddies. Back in the day Schmidt was the “nerd”, Jenko was the “jock” and Jenko bullied the heck out of Schmidt. But years have gone by, and the twosome have realised that they actually seem to complete eachother rather well – brains / brawn wise and have become best buds. However, no matter how complementary their talents are, this doesn’t make them all that successful in the police department. After utterly ruining their first arrest, they are sent to a special undercover unit on, well guess what, 21 Jump Street. Their mission? To stop the spread of new – and deadly – synthetic drug. By returning to high school – undercover.

Ok, it’s probably pretty obvious that this film is not some dark comedy wittily commenting on pertinent issues of our times. It’s something to kick back and relax to, have a proper old bellyful of laughs with friends to. But the thing is, it’s not so easy making a good comedy, even if it doesn’t necessarily entail making witty commentaries about the world. I mean, there is, in the first instance, the slight problem that most storylines worth their salt have already been exploited. You can find a new angle, use new actors and it may well work, but you have to be careful. Using an already popular concept can make you look pretty damn silly if it blows up in your face – especially with a particularly strong concept to compare your work to. Then there is the problem this film specifically faces. The 21 Jump Street television series. Or maybe I should say the highly popular, almost legendary 21 Jump Street television series. How do you cope with making a film (as opposed to a series – completely different kettle of fish ) about a concept that was SO popular without blowing it up in your face?

First of all, there is the concept of the series that came before. I mean, how do you cope with that one? 21 Jump Street does this by inserting clever tributes to the series all through the film. Ok, so what if they’re copying it – one can’t really ignore something like 21 Jump Street – the series – so they embrace their lineage. And there is categorically NOTHING wrong with that, so long as you do a good job of your own work. And well, the film is just HILARIOUS. The jokes and gags are very relevant, very cleverly updated from the 1980’s. The acting – and I know you’re probably going to say that it isn’t exactly Shakespeare, but sometimes the simple things are in fact just as hard as the fancy stuff – is also brilliant. Everything is tasteful and cleverly done as opposed to “silly” and relying overly on physical gags and the like. Put your prejudices to one side and give it whirl I say. You will NOT regret it.