21 Jump Street Review

Nobody wanted this and the film knows it, which is why a deputy chief announces in the first act that the department is recycling an old program because it has run out of ideas. Having cleared the air, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller get to the premise that actually pays: two men who peaked and then failed in 2005 go back to a high school where the currency has completely changed, and the former jock discovers that caring about things is now the popular position.

The inversion is a genuinely good idea and the film mines it properly rather than stating it once. Channing Tatum is the revelation, a physical comedian nobody had bothered to use, and his bewilderment carries more of the picture than Jonah Hill's neediness does. The action is competently staged and the running joke about explosions failing to happen is a small delight. The final act collapses into exactly the undercover chase it spent an hour mocking, which is a real cost. But the central observation about how fast a social order dates is sharp.