22 Jump Street
Director: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Screenwriters: Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel, Rodney Rothman
Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Amber Stevens, Jillian Bell, Nick Offerman, Rob Riggle, Dave Franco
Columbia Pictures | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Rated R | 112 Minutes
Release Date: June 13, 2013

“Hey! Stop fuckin’ with Korean Jesus. He ain’t got time for yo problems! He’s busy… with Korean shit!” – Ice Cube, 21 Jump Street

Back in 2008, when Columbia Pictures announced they were developing a film adaptation of 21 Jump Street, I was wracked with cynicism. “Really?” I asked incredulously. “Because Starsky & Hutch and Bewitched did so well?” My cynical nerd-brain jumped immediately to the place it so often does these days, “Just what we need, another reboot that no one asked for!”

I was pleasantly surprised, however, to discover that this revamp wasn’t a gritty, self-serious take like Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, but rather an uproarious action-comedy by the directing duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. And I certainly wasn’t expecting 21 Jump Street to be such a smart, self-reflexive satire of ’80s buddy cop flicks and teen movie tropes.