A pair of underachieving cops are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring.
Holding its middle finger up to ’80s retro-hounds, this remake gets it largely right. Fast, filthy, fresh and funny, Jump is worth a punt.
21 Jump Street has that Anchorman experimental-chaos vibe, with all the hit-and-miss moments that implies. It’s completely lunatic and sort of a mess. It’s also the funniest high-school comedy to come out of Hollywood in ages.
It's often hilariously executed and even when taking things a little too far remains endearing thanks to the appeal of its central duo.
A fairly filthy, funny flick that does nobody any harm.
Its charms wear thin the longer it goes on and the climax is needlessly violent.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller's picture doesn't know when to quit when it's ahead, but lots of movie in-jokes, a nicely over the top performance by Ice Cube as a police captain, and some ace interplay between Hill and Tatum make this worth the leap.
You have the right to remain smirking.
21 Jump Street feels like a minor triumph. It’s certainly preferable to any recent Johnny Depp vehicles.
A surprisingly perceptive, guffaw-inducingly funny high school comedy.
In its outrageous way, 21 Jump Street has real laughs.
Surprisingly funny.
The gags keep coming even as the picture veers out of control, its chief handicap obvious from the outset: Hill can do comedy, and Tatum can't.
The laughs are very thin on the ground, making this a crime scene of a movie.
It's as undisciplined as today's semi-improvised, post-Judd Apatow comedies always are, but it does have a few smart jokes.
The movie is overlong and obsessively foul-mouthed, which has, quite rightly most will think, attracted a certificate that will prevent a good many members of its target audience from seeing it.
After some dodgy remakes of other 80s shows (The Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team), this film is a welcome change and with some intelligent surprises up its sleeve, actually makes for satisfying and lively viewing.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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