Just the Ticket #56: 2012 Jump Street

"We don't have any original ideas. We just dig around in the garbage and use the same old shit over and over." I may not have the quote exactly right, but that's what Ice Cube's police captain says at one point in the R-Rated comedy send-up of the 80's TV series, 21 Jump Street.
And that's just the beginning of the self-referential bitch-slapping of Hollywood as written into the new Jump Street, courtesy of star and executive producer Jonah Hill. The idea of having the often immature Hill and co-star/co-executive producer Channing Tatum play adult police officers who look young enough to go undercover in high school where most of the students are played by youthful adult actors is kind of funny.
With today's emphasis on tolerance in schools, I found Jump Street to be a smart, if cursory commentary on bullying that had the well-matched Tatum and Hill not only inadvertently swapping cover identities, but reversing their roles in high school society as well. Tatum's jock, who used to climb the social ladder through an apathetic persona and harassment of those who make an effort or are different, learns tolerance when his old ways make him an outcast of the new norm, while Hill's nerd gains popularity just by being himself.
Jump Street also makes broadly comedic, yet intelligent sport of car chases, explosions, and metropolitan traffic (while eluding a biker gang, Hill and Tatum overturn two propane trucks and a chicken truck, only the last of which explodes, the pair repeatedly run into freeway traffic, which they avoid by running through the backed-up cars and commandeering the vehicle responsible for the traffic jam).
And like most cinematic remakes, Jump Street wouldn't be complete without cameos by Jump Street originals Johnny Depp, Peter DeLuise, and Holly Robinson-Peete reprising their roles from the series.
For the most part, the new Jump Street is funny and enjoyable, showing Hill's influences as an Apatow staple via copious F-Bombs and dick jokes that often toe that fuzzy line between inappropriate and uncomfortable. But in the third act, the movie upped its FQ (that's Fuck Quotient for those who don't know) and degenerated into a monotonous cacophony of shouted dialogue and gunfire that had me struggling to find a laugh and glancing at the timer to see how much more of the same I would have to endure.
Jump Street gets an A for effort, but whoever came up with that phrase might want to go back to school to learn that the beginning of "effort" sounds like an F.
I'll just give it a B+ for brilliance plus boredom.

I'm on the three disk plan at NetFlix, so this week I also received the modern Noah's Ark tale Take Shelter (for next issue) and the old Kevin Bacon drama The Woodsman. As Jonah Hill might say, stay tuned, you dickless motherfuckers! What? No, I didn't just write that. Next time, Ticketholders!