CHANNING TATUM goes crazy and shows sexy funny in “21 JUMP STREET”

One of Hollywood’s most sought after young actors today and has established himself among the next generation of leading men. Best known for action thrillers (“G.I. Joe”) and romantic dramas (“The Vow,” “Dear John”), Channing Tatum now stars in his first comedy film ever, Columbia Pictures' hilarious high school send-off, “21 Jump Street.”

In the film, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover...in high school!

Looking for a foil for Jonah Hill's nerdy character, the filmmakers searched for an actor to play Jenko – a guy for whom everything went right during high school who discovers that things aren’t so easy the second time around. Who could be handsome and an alpha male, but funny, too?

“When we met Channing Tatum, we realized he’s perfect for the role because he’s naturally funny and sincere,” says co-director Christopher Miller.

“Channing Tatum hits all the right notes,” co-director Phil Lord shares. “Everyone knows he can pull off the heroic stuff, but there’s an underlying kindness to him that makes a nice contrast to his performance. And he’s so much funnier than people expect. We knew that the actor who plays Jenko had to be somebody who could be comedic and have a twinkle in his eye, and Channing has that.”

Tatum, who also signed on as an executive producer, says, modestly, “I’m the biggest fan of comedies, but I’m terrified of them. I’m so envious of guys like Jonah – so when he called and he said, ‘We’re doing 21 Jump Street, and we want you to be in it,’ I really thought I got the wrong call. Comedy is just so different – not only do you have to worry about being honest in the scene, but you also have to figure out where the funny beats are and punch them, then drop and stop talking. It’s a fine art. Fortunately, I was surrounded by comedy writers and stand-up comics who really knew what they were doing – I learned an enormous amount.”

Tatum’s character, Jenko, is the living opposite of Hill’s Schmidt. “They went to high school together, and the first time around, Jenko was the popular kid, the jock who got the girls,” says Tatum. “When they go back, they find that everything has changed in 10 years. It used to be all about picking on kids, being a bully, sleeping through class. Now everyone’s a vegan, running their cars on vegetable oil… they’re into everything that Jenko thinks is BS. Jenko ends up hanging around with the nerds, and for the first time, sees that all the stuff that nerds do – learning – is actually cool.”

The fact that they are opposites is one of the reasons they work so well together, according to Hill. “Even a two-shot of us is funny, because we’re such different types – you wonder how we even met each other, let alone became best friends. It was clear right from the table read that the two of us would work well together – Channing surpassed all of my expectations of how cool and talented he is.”

“One of the things about Jenko – I think if you asked him why he wanted to be a cop, he wouldn’t have an answer. I’m guessing he just watched a lot of cop movies and thought it would be really cool,” says Tatum. In a way, Tatum and his character had similar childhoods. “My friends and I would get an old Civic, one guy would drive it and the other would roll across the hood, to see who could do the fastest one. I don’t think Jonah did that kind of stupid stuff.”

“Channing told this crazy story about hanging with his buddies from childhood – they partied really hard, then went out to the desert and shot guns, and then they all got tattoos, and then they went over to another friend’s house and scared him, and then they all got crazy together,” says Lord. “I said, ‘Wow, when did this happen?’ and he said, ‘Saturday.’ I love this guy – he is Jenko.”

Opening across the Philippines on May 9, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

JONAH HILL | A nerd who's suddenly cool in “21 JUMP STREET”

Jonah Hill has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents, due in part to his dynamic evolution from laugh-out-loud comedy star to Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award® nominee for Best Supporting Actor in 2011 for his role in Moneyball, in which he starred opposite Brad Pitt.

Now, he makes a successful return to the comedy genre with Columbia Pictures' “21 Jump Street,” an R-13-rated movie that took Hollywood box office by storm.

In the film, Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover...in high school!

Jonah Hill's character, Schmidt, is a onetime nerd who finds himself suddenly cool for the first time in his life. “It’s one of the more interesting characters I’ve played,” says the actor. “He just wants to be a good cop, but he has insecurities that date all the way back to high school. When he gets sent back to high school, undercover, he gets drunk with power, forgets about police work, forgets about his friendship with Jenko. He likes living this fake high school life – better than the life he has as a guy in his mid-20s.” So in essence it’s the story of a guy who gets lost in his moment in the sun.

Hill, who's also credited as executive producer of “21 Jump Street,” says that the film started with a simple question: "What would it be like to relieve the most important time period of your youth... high school. You think you have all the answers that you didn't have then, but then you get back there and realize those answers are all wrong. You then immediately revert back to the insecurities and problems you had when you were seventeen."

Hill wrote the story with Michael Bacall, who wrote the screenplay. “At first, nothing goes as planned for the characters. These guys treat it like wish fulfillment – ‘Oh, if I only knew then what I know now,’” Bacall explains. “But all of the information that they have no longer applies. Jenko – who was always the cool kid back then – falls in with the nerds, and Schmidt – the nerdier of the two – falls in with the cool crowd. It’s a total role reversal.”

According to Hill, the fact that the show has been off the air for a generation worked to their advantage in devising the story and the tone. “I’ll meet teenagers and I’ll ask them if they know the series – they don’t,” he says. “So I tell them it’s about young-looking cops who go undercover in a high school, and they say, ‘That sounds awesome.’ It’s such a great premise for an action-comedy.”

Opening across the Philippines on May 9, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

JAMES FRANCO'S brother, DAVE is “21 JUMP STREET” villain

Soon, he will be recognized for his own achievements. But for now, actor-on-the-rise Dave Franco may have to settle with being referred to as the younger brother of James Franco. Dave's campaign to move out of big brother's shadow shifts to high gear as he plays the villain in Columbia Pictures' new action-comedy “21 Jump Street,” a recent No.1 box-office hit in the U.S.

In the film, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover...in high school!

Trouble is, teenagers today are nothing like what they were just a few years ago, and Schmidt and Jenko discover that everything they think they know about being a teenager, from sex to drugs to rock and roll, is all wrong.

Dave Franco plays the pivotal role as Eric, who sets most of the plot in motion. “Eric is dealing a new drug at his high school, which is the reason why Schmidt and Jenko are going undercover – they have to find out the source of this drug so they can eradicate it,” says co-director Christopher Miller.

Casting Dave Franco in the role was a way the film could contrast how high school has changed since Schmidt and Jenko’s first time around. “Dave Franco is essentially the perfect man,” says co-director Phil Lord. “He’s a nice, compact Greek/Roman-sized person – the girls go crazy for him. The cool kids nowadays are not the same from a teen movie from the 1980s – Eric drives Jenko nuts because he’s so cool.”

“We saw a lot of people, but I knew we had to cast Davey, because he’s the one guy I kept trying to impress. I already had the part and I’m trying to impress the guy who’s auditioning, make him think I’m cool,” says co-star Jonah Hill who's also one of the film's producers. “That’s exactly what we wanted for the part.”

It was important to all of the filmmakers to make Franco’s character well-rounded. “Everyone should be a hero in their own narrative,” says Lord. “I always thought that the character shouldn’t be an evil thug. The kids I knew in high school who were dealing drugs were kids who were making messed-up choices – they weren’t evil, they were funny or charming or interesting, and had you known them, you’d have good things to say about them. We thought this was a good opportunity to show a grounded, real person who happened to be dealing drugs.”

With that in mind, the filmmakers and Franco focused on the character’s concern for the environment. “You have the cool guy talking about composting and finding ways to conserve water, but at the same time he’s dealing drugs,” says Franco. “I felt it was a new take on the character. It was a lot of fun because I wasn’t playing a straight jerk. He’s full of it, but he’s also charming – you get to see the more vulnerable side to the character.”

Dave Franco recently starred in the DreamWorks horror film “Fright Night,” as well as in the Funny or Die web series, “Acting with James Franco.” The first installment in the series “Sense Memory” is one of the most viewed videos on Funny or Die, attracting over 120,000 views in its first month. Franco also wrote and starred in his own Funny or Die video, “You’re so Hot,” featuring Christopher Mintz-Plasse, which garnered over one million hits. Franco followed up with “Go F--- Yourself,” which has reached nearly 800,000 hits to date. Franco also starred with Emma Roberts in the MTV Super Video for Cults’ “Go Outside,” which has been seen my more than 500,000 viewers online. An avid writer, Franco began writing well before he became involved in acting.

Opening across the Philippines in May, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

For more 21 Jump Street news, click here.

21 JUMP STREET | Holds sneak previews on April 23 & 24

The breakout comedy of the year “21 Jump Street” from Columbia Pictures will have special sneak previews in selected theaters everywhere on Monday and Tuesday, April 23 & 24.

Starring the hilariously dysfunctional duo of Jonah Hill (“Moneyball”) and Channing Tatum (“The Vow,” “G.I. Joe”), “21 Jump Street” is the big screen re-imagining of the iconic '90s detective TV series which famously launched the career of superstar Johnny Depp.

In the action-comedy, Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover.

Trouble is, teenagers today are nothing like what they were just a few years ago, and Schmidt and Jenko discover that everything they think they know about being a teenager, from sex to drugs to rock and roll, is all wrong. More importantly, they both find they are still dealing with all of the adolescent problems they didn't address in their own teen years - and both will have to confront the terror and anxiety of being a teenager again and all the issues they thought they had left behind.

Opening across the Philippines on May 9, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

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Rookie cops CHANNING TATUM & JONAH HILL go undercover as high school teens in “21 JUMP STREET”

Animation directors return with R13-rated “21 JUMP STREET” | Cast led by CHANNING TATUM

Movie Sneak Peek: 21 JUMP STREET | Stars CHANNING TATUM & Oscar nominee JONAH HILL

Animation directors return with R13-rated “21 JUMP STREET” | Cast led by CHANNING TATUM

Columbia Pictures wanted a fresh take for its new action-comedy “21 Jump Street,' so an intense search was held for a director that could make the new vision pop on the screen. They got two for the price of one: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, who had previously helmed the acclaimed animated hit “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.”

Could the directors of a family friendly animated film possibly be the right choice for this R-rated live-action action-comedy? “We felt like we wanted to do something that was the exact opposite of what we had just done – although, to be fair, `Cloudy' is an action comedy, just geared to a different audience. Still, we had a lot to prove,” Miller explains. “So we made a whole presentation that showed what we would do. We knew we had to do a little razzle-dazzle.”

Whatever skepticism the producers may have had was washed away by the meeting. “When they came in, they were incredibly prepared,” says producer Tania Landau. “They had a PowerPoint presentation. They had created a book with every point of the movie and how it should look. I was blown away. The guys were so creative and enthusiastic – we were all in sync.”

One of the reasons that Lord and Miller were so excited by the material was that they wouldn’t just be directing the movie – they would be living out the themes of the story. “When I was growing up, I watched ‘Jump Street’ because the cute girls in my high school were watching it – I wanted to be up on the storylines. So, this project is like coming full circle – I become a cool person by making this movie,” says Lord.

In “21 Jump Street,” Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover.

With Hill’s comic sense under Lord and Miller’s direction, combined with producer Neal H. Moritz’ action chops, the project had the perfect mix of talent. “You have Neal Moritz’s `Fast and Furious' action side, and Jonah Hill style comedy,” says Miller. “Those things combine, explode, and recombine their atoms to make the perfectly formed movie.”

“Neal has produced lots of great and successful action movies,” says Hill. “So I felt that he would be a great partner in making this because I have made a lot of comedies and he has made a lot of action movies and together we could hopefully make a great action comedy."

“Every time I do an action movie, I feel like we have to top the last one,” says Moritz. “But it’s not about bigger explosions or bigger car crashes – that doesn’t work. The action has to be character-based, it has to be something you haven’t seen before. For `21 Jump Street,' because it’s an action comedy, we tried to have the action be clever and humorous, to really come out of the characters and their relationships.”

Opening across the Philippines in May, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

Rookie cops CHANNING TATUM & JONAH HILL go undercover as high school teens in “21 JUMP STREET”

Channing Tatum pairs up with Jonah Hill in Columbia Pictures' new action-comedy “21 Jump Street,” a recent No. 1 box-office hit in the U.S.

In the film, Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover.

Trouble is, teenagers today are nothing like what they were just a few years ago, and Schmidt and Jenko discover that everything they think they know about being a teenager, from sex to drugs to rock and roll, is all wrong. More importantly, they both find they are still dealing with all of the adolescent problems they didn't address in their own teen years - and both will have to confront the terror and anxiety of being a teenager again and all the issues they thought they had left behind.

The idea for breathing new life into “21 Jump Street” as a feature film began with Stephen J. Cannell, who had co-created the popular television series with Patrick Hasburgh back in the day. One of the most venerable, talented, and prolific television writer-producers, Cannell’s many credits – from “The A-Team” to “The Rockford Files” to “The Greatest American Hero” to “Wiseguy,” among many others – earned him a legion of fans and admirers, especially among his colleagues in entertainment.

One such admirer is producer Neal H. Moritz, who has earned his own reputation as a go-to producer of action films. “He was incredibly charismatic – I loved everything about him,” says Moritz of Cannell, who died in 2010 at the age of 69. Moritz recalls their initial meeting: “We started talking about ’21 Jump Street’ and I told him how much I had loved that show. He mentioned that he was working on turning it into a movie, that he was a fan of my movies, and he asked me if I would like to get involved with the project. Are you kidding?”

“21 Jump Street” ran for five seasons, the first four on the nascent Fox network, providing them with one of their first hits. Starring Johnny Depp in his first major role, the drama about young-looking cops going undercover in high schools scored high ratings in the key demographic of young viewers that the then-fledgling network was beginning to court.

Moritz and executive producer Tania Landau immediately saw the promise in updating that premise, but it wasn’t until Jonah Hill became involved that the project really came into focus. “It’s a great concept,” Landau says. “Two young-looking cops go undercover at a high school, and against all odds, bust a drug ring. We make a lot of action movies, so that was how we saw the direction for this project, too. But things changed when we had lunch with Jonah; he suggested doing it as an R-rated action comedy, and suddenly it all fell into place.”

Hill says that it started with a simple question: "What would it be like to relieve the most important time period of your youth... high school. You think you have all the answers that you didn't have then, but then you get back there and realize those answers are all wrong. You then immediately revert back to the insecurities and problems you had when you were seventeen."

Moritz and Landau immediately sparked to Hill's fresh take on the material, and Cannell, too, thought it was a great spin on the “Jump Street” series.

Opening across the Philippines in May, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

Movie Sneak Peek: 21 JUMP STREET | Stars CHANNING TATUM & Oscar nominee JONAH HILL

In Columbia Pictures' action-comedy “21 Jump Street,” Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) were enemies in high school who became unlikely friends in Police Academy. While they may not be the best cops on the beat, they have a chance to turn it around when they join the police department's secret Jump Street unit, run by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks and use their youthful appearances to go undercover.

Trouble is, teenagers today are nothing like what they were just a few years ago, and Schmidt and Jenko discover that everything they think they know about being a teenager, from sex to drugs to rock and roll, is all wrong. More importantly, they both find they are still dealing with all of the adolescent problems they didn't address in their own teen years - and both will have to confront the terror and anxiety of being a teenager again and all the issues they thought they had left behind.

Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures present in association with Relativity Media an Original Film / Cannell Studios production, “21 Jump Street.” Starring Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, with Ice Cube. Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller. Produced by Neal H. Moritz and Stephen J. Cannell. Screenplay by Michael Bacall. Story by Michael Bacall & Jonah Hill. Based on the Television Series Created by Patrick Hasburgh & Stephen J. Cannell. Executive producers are Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ezra Swerdlow, and Tania Landau. Director of Photography is Barry Peterson csc. Production Designer is Peter Wenham. Editor is Joel Negron. Costume Designer is Leah Katznelson. Music by Mark Mothersbaugh.

Opening across the Philippines in May, “21 Jump Street” will be distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

21 Jump Street (Phil Lord & Chris Miller, 2012)

21 Jump Street is such an unnecessary remake that even the film itself acknowledges its own pointlessness. It's a moment of upfront honesty rarely seen in the current sausage grinder of audience-insulting retreads that prevent original material from being produced at the expense of works with a (theoretically, at least) built-in audience. Yet what makes the movie such an unexpected delight is that it never lapses into the lazy self-awareness waved around weak films like incense swung from a thurible. Rather than merely name-checking its weaknesses and moving on, 21 Jump Street tinkers with conventions to believably update its subject matter while affectionately parodying the '80s buddy cop tropes that fueled the original TV show.

As such, it better positions itself to mock the old and the new, commenting equally on classic action film stereotypes and modern stylistic elements. Like Hot Fuzz, 21 Jump Street so faithfully embodies its targets that it winds up an excellent buddy cop film in its own right. How good is the chemistry between its two mutually and self-deprecating leads? So good that I emerged liking, if not loving, Channing Tatum. God help us all.

Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, previously known for their excellent animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, waste little time establishing their story. They hilariously plow through the usual first act of a buddy cop movie in what feels like seconds, pitting portly and nerdy Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and handsome but thick Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) as enemies in high school before uniting them as the best of friends in police academy moments later. The filmmakers know that the audience is used to all the initial "tension erodes into grudging respect and friendship" of buddy cop films as spares us the perfunctory steps and gets right to the story. As if to further drive home the point that such setups don't need to waste all that time on the buddy dynamic, the montage manages to generate a palpable bond between the two leads in minutes, effectively grounding everything that follows over the next hour and 40 minutes.


After the two rookies botch a drug bust—Schmidt from his unwillingness to shoot a charging perp, Jenko for failing to read his captured suspect the Miranda rights—their captain reassigns them to a restarted undercover program on 21 Jump Street, making a sharp joke about the inanity of reviving old, outdated things and hoping no one will be the wiser. Now under the command of a foul-mouthed captain who embraces his stereotyped portrayal as an angry black police leader (Ice Cube in an inspired performance), Schmidt and Jenko must pose as high schoolers to uncover the suppliers behind a new drug craze sweeping their old alma mater.

Riffing on the way remakes transplant older material to the current day without significantly changing any elements, the film's portrayal of high school cliques messes with the two cops. Expecting to find the usual bands of jocks and nerds and goths, they instead find new groups of people that look as unfamiliar as aliens. And even the pre-existing cliques have shifted with the times: the popular kids are no longer the tough jocks but the privileged teenagers aspiring to the best colleges, and they have little use for Jenko's masculine posturing. In fact, all that his tough-guy antics accomplish is nearly getting him accused of a hate crime before his first day of school even begins.

The film moves swiftly into its blitzkrieg of comedy, and I missed whole minutes of the film simply because I was still laughing at what had come before. Yet I was pleasantly surprised at the time the filmmakers took to ground their jokes in the sort of thoughtful consideration one hardly expects from a remake of a T.V. show. Schmidt's and Jenko's laziness causes them to mix up their fake identities, forcing Schmidt to go as the athletic all-star and Jenko to attend as the honor-class high-achiever. That's a great joke in its own right, and one the film mines for a length of time, but what makes it even better is that Lord and Miller use it to comment on what someone might do if they got the chance to go back to high school and how they might do it differently. Schmidt, such a loser in high school, now enjoys a surge of popularity, while Jenko finds that his meat-headed approach is out of date (in fairness, it was technically out of date during the period they were in high school the first time, but I think that's the joke).

Their varied experiences in returning to the point in people's lives that seems to define them no matter how badly we all want to move on spills over into other areas. The film never slams on the brakes to examine male insecurity, but it's constantly at work in Schmidt's and Jenko's behavior, be it their shifting braggadocio and nervousness in school or out in the field. Some gags occasionally toy with the easy jokes of homophobia in "bromance," but chiefly the film runs on how these men feel about each other, and how that makes them feel about themselves. The film never forces this particular line of thought, but its presence is as welcome as the humor

And damn is it funny. It's a hard thing to praise a comedy; you can't really talk about its jokes without spoiling them, and they won't be as funny written out anyway. But every scene has a laugh in it, mainly thanks to the fantastic cast. Tatum and Hill are both hysterically invested in their roles and deeply self-deprecating, but the supporting players are as good. Ice Cube nearly steals the show as Dickson, always fuming at the bumbling pair in a way that seems like a straight trope and a gentle parody of same. Brie Larson plays Schmidt's love interest, Molly, with a sarcastic bite that doesn't leave her feeling like a tacked-on addition, while Dave Franco digs into Eric to tear apart the spoiled, self-sure rich boy while also adding flecks of empathy that prevents his deliberately irritating performance from being truly grating or cruel. Rob Riggle also deserves a shout-out for his scenes, all of which unleash his psychotic, jubilant, and psychotically jubilant persona onto the screen.

And on the rare occasion when the pure energy of the actors' isn't carrying the film, the visual gags, some of them so quick you have to be on the lookout for them, fill the gaps. A ridiculous chase scene has huge jokes like the recurring bit about things the cops expect will explode remaining inert, but also subtler touches like a billboard that simply reads "Billboard" or a pistol located in the glove compartment of a pink VW bug. And for a film that parodies well-known conventions, there are many jokes that break outside expectations, especially an out-of-left-field reference to Miles Davis that had me gasping for air. But again, I return to the heart of the movie: 21 Jump Street hits all the familiar cues, but it does so in a way that displays more respect for its comic characters than most straight-faced buddy cop films. No one is winking in this movie, not even with certain cameos or on-the-nose lines of dialogue. Instead, 21 Jump Street gives these characters an actual reason to exist in something that that everyone, including the filmmakers, thinks shouldn't. When the production company logo for Original Film flashed on the screen at the start, I laughed, but by the end, I felt it was a strangely appropriate introduction for this wonderful surprise.