SYNOPSIS: The 21 Jump Street high school undercover cops Schmidt and Jenko (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) are back, but this time they’re narco cops. That is until they botch an investigation into drug lord Ghost’s (Peter Stormare) operation. Their failure gets them demoted back to the 22 Jump Street (they moved across the road) program. Jump Street’s Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) sends them undercover, as unlikely brothers Brad and Doug McQuaid, to college to arrest the supplier of a drug named WHYPHY (WiFi). The bumbling, but self-confident duo infiltrates the college, but campus life—frat house parties, football and girls—threaten to blow apart their partnership.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 ½ Stars
Mark: 3 Stars
Richard: Mark, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are producers on the new Jump Street film, which, I guess, explains all the jokes about how much everything cost. At one point Hill actually says, “It’s way more expensive for no reason at all.” I don’t know how much the movie cost to make, but the self-aware jokes did make me laugh even though it is essentially a remake of the first film, with a few more Laurel and Hardy slapstick gags and amped up explosions. What was your take?
Mark: Richard, I liked this installment way more than the previous outing. I loved all the self-referential gags, including the brilliant end-credits that hilariously make fun of the inevitable sequels that will follow. I credit the directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, for the knowing pop culture sophistication they brought to the film. They directed the first one too, but they’ve grown more confident since their Lego Movie hit, which also tweaked the audience’s expectations in a similar way.
RC: The end credit sequence, which maps out the next sequels from number 3 to installment 43—they go to Beauty School and Magic School among other places of higher learning— is probably the funniest part of the movie. The stuff that comes before is amiable, relying on the Mutt and Jeff chemistry of Hill and Tatum for laughs. It’s boisterous and aims to please, but best of all are the self-referential jokes. By clowning around about the difficulty in making the sequel better than the original they’re winking at the audience, acknowledging that this is basically a spoof of Hollywood sequels. It’s subversive, meta and kind of brilliant.
MB: Yep. Because I can see explosions and pratfalls in any “action comedy”; it’s the subversive stuff that makes this movie stand apart. The intergender fight sequence between Jonah Hill and Jillian Bell (who is incredible throughout the film) is as subversive a take on sexual politics and “rape culture” that you will ever find. It’s these kinds of scenes that kept me laughing through the picture. The black stoner twins, played expertly by The Lucas Bros, were a masterpiece of writing and comic timing.
RC: I agree, but ill-timed jokes about Maya Angelou and Tracy Morgan were sore thumbs for me, but that’s more co-incidence, I guess than bad taste.
MB: I don’t think those jokes were deliberate, but they sure broke the spell for me. But then Ice Cube’s comic rants got me back.
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are producers on “22 Jump Street,” which, I guess, explains the large number of jokes about how much everything cost. At one point Hill actually says, “It’s way more expensive for no reason at all.”
I don’t know how much the movie cost to make, but the self-aware jokes did make me laugh even though “22” is essentially a remake of the first film, with a few more Laurel and Hardy slapstick gags and amped up explosions.
The “21 Jump Street” high school undercover cops Schmidt and Jenko (Hill and Tatum) are back, but this time they’re narco cops. That is until they botch an investigation into drug lord Ghost’s (Peter Stormare) operation. Their failure gets them demoted back to the 22 Jump Street (they moved across the road) program.
Jump Street’s Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) sends them undercover as unlikely brothers Brad and Doug McQuaid, to college to arrest the supplier of a drug named WHYPHY (WiFi). The bumbling, but self-confident duo infiltrates the college, but campus life—frat house parties, football and girls—threaten to blow apart their partnership. “Maybe we should investigate other people,” says Jenko, “sow our cop oats.”
“22 Jump Street’s” end credit sequence, which maps out the next sequels from number 3 to installment 43—they go to Beauty and Magic School among other places of higher learning— is probably the funniest part of the movie. Co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller—they also made “The Lego Movie”—expertly parody Hollywood’s obsession with grinding a good thing into the ground and grab a few laughs while they do it.
The stuff that comes before is amiable, relying on the Mutt and Jeff chemistry of the neurotic Hill and all-American Tatum for laughs. It’s boisterous and aims to please, but best of all are the self-referential jokes. By clowning around about the difficulty in making the sequel better than the original they’re winking at the audience, acknowledging that this is basically a spoof of Hollywood sequels. It’s meta and kind of brilliant.
It isn’t, however, a laugh a minute. Ill-timed jokes about Maya Angelou and Tracy Morgan are sore thumbs, while the bromance between Schmidt and Jenko is played out until it begins to feel like the punch line to a bad, politically incorrect gag.
Better are Tatum’s malapropisms. The dim-witted cop says, “I thought we had Cate Blanchett on this assignment,” when he means “carte blanche,” and confuses “anal” and “annal.” They’re easy jokes, but Channing milks laughs out of them.
There will likely be a “23 Jump Street”—the film shows us an under-construction condo at that address—which will hopefully have the same subversive sense of fun, but more actual jokes.
Popular culture has frequently paid homage to the lowly rodent. The Captain and Tennille scored a hit with Muskrat Love, their ode to arvicoline amour and Michael Jackson rode to the top of the charts on rat back with the tune Ben, possibly the only love song to a rat ever released.
Ben, of course, was the theme song to the 1972 movie of the same name. It was the sequel to Willard, the original “revolución de las ratas” flick. Ben and Willard, along with Stuart Little, Mr. Gopher, the burrowing terror from Caddyshack, Rizzo the Rat, Despereaux Tilling, Fievel Mousekewitz, the gang from Once Upon a Forest and of course, the biggest rodent star of all, Mickey Mouse, have left their mark in movie theatres. This weekend a new set of rodents that go by the collective name G-Force hope to do for guinea pigs what March of the Penguins did for tuxedo clad furry birds.
This mix of live action and animation from hotshot producer Jerry Bruckheimer centers on a team of trained secret agent guinea pigs. There’s team Leader Darwin (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Juarez (Penélope Cruz), Blaster (30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan) and mole Speckles (1996 Best Actor Nicolas Cage). In the midst of their biggest US government assignment ever—stopping evil billionaire Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy), from destroying the world with household appliances—they are shut down and sent to a pet shop. There they go rogue, hooking up with Hurley (Jon Favreau) and hamster Bucky (Steve Buscemi) and get back to the business of saving the world.
On the cute scale the G-Force members are somewhere between Ratatouille and Stuart Little, which is to say they are quite adorable. Pet stores should brace themselves for a run on guinea pigs but I couldn’t help but think that the rodents are less characters than prototypes for action figures and other toys. As is so often the case with bad kid’s films, more thought seems to have been given to the spin off toys kids will want after they leave the theatre than what is actually up on the screen.
The story is silly, but really, what did you expect from a film about crime fighting guinea pigs? It’s not the story that brings G-Force down, but the flat, bored performances.
The live actors aren’t the focus of the movie, but Wil Arnett and Bill Nighy do little more than simply show up and Zach Galifanikis blows whatever street cred he built up after his bizarre breakout performance in The Hangover.
The voice cast includes not one, but two Oscar winners, which may be an indication that the recession has finally taken root in Hollywood. When the best gig Penelope Cruz can get involves saying lines like “Oh, I have to save his fur again?” you know times are tight for a-listers.
Voice work wise only Nicolas Cage seems to be putting in much effort, doing a kind of Pee Wee Herman impression as the brianiac mole Speckles and Steve Buscemi has a naturally good cartoon voice but the other actors blow through their lines as if they had something better to do elsewhere.
The 3-D is sharp but other than a few fun stereoscopic gags it adds nothing to the movie except $3 to the price of the ticket.
G-Force has some good messages for kids about believing in yourself and the importance of family, but they are wrapped in a frenetic and cynical excuse for a movie that ends by setting itself up for a sequel which, if there is a patron saint of film critics, will never happen.
Family functions can be intense at the best of times. A Christmas dinner can turn into a theatre of war over burnt gravy; a family reunion, a battleground of hurt feelings and resentment. Probably no other family event is as highly charged as a funeral. Emotions are heightened and everybody is on edge. Add to that charged atmosphere a boyfriend who has been accidentally dosed with LSD, a gay blackmailer, and a grumpy uncle and you have “Death at a Funeral,” a new all star farce starring Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan.
Based on a 2007 British film of the same name “Death of a Funeral” begins on the day of Aaron (Rock) and Ryan (Martin Lawrence) father’s funeral. Opting for a home funeral, every family member has been invited. They include the crusty uncles Russell and Duncan (Danny Glover and Ron Glass ), a soon to be married couple Elaine and Oscar (Zoe Saldana and James Marsden) and family friends Norman (Tracy Morgan) and Derek (Luke Wilson). Also attending is Frank (Peter Dinklage, reprising his role from the original) an uninvited guest with a secret about Aaron and Ryan’s father.
“Death at a Funeral” is a farce. There are lots of slamming doors, outrageous situations, a mysterious rash, a hallucinating guest and a coffin that seems unable to contain the dead body within. If you don’t like one joke, stay with it, there’ll be fifteen more in the next minute-and-a-half. They come fast and furious and while only about half of them land it’s enough to make “Death at a Funeral” worth a look.
Chris Rock as the centerpiece of all the action. He’s the comedic anchor around which all the action spins but he’s not just the film’s straight man. He sets up and knocks down joke after joke—including one hilarious Screamin’ Jay Hawkins reference—all the while adding some warmth to the rare non-comedic scenes.
Also strong is James Marsden who shows off his comic chops in the unforgiving role as the high guy. It’s a “Reefer Madness” portrayal of someone in the depths of an acid trip—if you want realism rent “Requiem for a Dream”—but it is funny watching him try and interact with the other guests at the funeral while out of his mind.
The rest of the ensemble cast flits in and out of the action with varying degrees of success. If the idea of Tracy Morgan saying, “I’m gonna forget about the poop in my mouth,” amuses you, then his role is successful (if a little less sophisticated than the material he spouts every week on “30 Rock”) and the great Danny Glover (who once played Nelson Mandela) has little to do other than reprise his stuck on a toilet gag from “Lethal Weapon 2.”
Much of “Death at a Funeral” is in very bad taste but despite a hint of homophobia delivers some solid laughs.
By Richard Crouse & Mark Breslin – Metro Reel Guys
