22 Jump Street


21 Jump Street was quite ridiculous enough, explicitly pointing out it was based on a 1980s programme, and gradually upping the self-referentiality, until in the climax Johnny Depp appeared. In the closing moments, Ice Cube yells at Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill that they’ll be going to college and so, two years later, here we are.

Sequels, as the characters point out, are never as good as the originals; twice as much money is thrown at the problem, in the expectation of twice as much profit. On the way out of the cinema, I heard a disgruntled punter complain that it wasn’t as funny as the first one, but this was after 90 minutes of everyone in the cinema roaring with laughter. Apart from me; I didn’t guffaw, until the closing credits where, in an attempt to forestall any more sequels, they run through a series of posters for Jump Streets 23 through 40.

It’s not that it wasn’t a funny film, but it was funny in different ways. As in so many sequels where the (b)romantic pairing remains the same, to add tension one of them has to seek excitement and difference while the other becomes possessive and jealous. The story itself is not all that important; it’s more an opportunity for Tatum and Hill to continue being daft as they did in the first film.

Every plot twist is signalled from miles away, but then I guess you don’t go to a film like this for subtlety. There may be a lot of the movie that I missed, of course, as I watched it in censorious Singapore. As I walked in, I wondered if the defence against censorship was to include scenes of such utter perversion and obscenity that the censor would be unable to recognize them as such. But either they weren’t that bold, or nothing much got cut. Certainly it was easier to follow than Die Hard In Some Helicopter Blades last year.

Came home, went to bed, woke up, had expensive breakfast, came home, went out, ate revolting egg prata, did a photo shoot for a friend, came home again, wrote 500 words of Gap Year, went to Queenstown Stadium to run, found out I couldn’t because there was a football match on (with apparently no spectators) came home again, ate the remains of my taco mixture from yesterday, looked for something interesting on the internet, found nothing, went to bed. So that was Sunday, I suppose.


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