Big Screen Peter: 21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as two ne'er-do-well cops sent undercover to infiltrate an adolescent drug ring.

There is plenty of ancillary action in 21 Jump Street, but at it's heart the film is a relationship story of two guys brought together as friends despite their vast differences.  One's a nerd, one's a jock. One's affable and easy going, the other is neurotic and socially awkward. They are propped up as caricatures of societal subsets. And while this sort of dichotomy is a tired trick, it's used time and again because it's relatable.

The movie, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, is a rehash of the original television series in name only. While the primetime show was earnestly dramatic, the movie is decidedly tongue-in-cheek: a satire of both the garish teen-centric programming of the 80s and of Hollywood's own penchant for rehashing material and force-feeding it to the moviegoing masses.

And for some, this self-conscious posturing seems to be enough to mark 21 Jump Street as a pleasing, above average movie. Sly as it may be, the movie falls flat. The cutesy premise gives way to almost two hours of dick jokes and rambling, semi-amusing explanatory monologues. These are interspersed with a high dose of action oriented clips that seem as stale as the idea of a 31-year-old man playing a high school kid.

It's not all bad news though.

While Jonah Hill is exactly what we've come to expect Jonah Hill to be in any given role (a sincerely rambling, though ultimately amusing neurotic), Channing Tatum is rather charming as a somewhat dopey beefcake. Though perhaps not a stretch, his role is an endearing turn. His gradual attachment to the nerds he once would have dismissed out of hand is a natural turn, one that while trite, gives a needed emotional focus to the film.  It's certainly much more palatable than the relationship purported as the “heart” of the movie: Hill's romance with a high school senior played by Brie Larson.

The most depressing thing about 21 Jump Street — and most all of Hollywood's bromance movies — is the inability to honestly address emotions without cloaking it in homosexual subtext. Each conveyance of emotion is fraught with some secondary meaning, whether it's a linguistic double-entendre or a juxtaposed location.

Expecting something more may be shortsighted, but true entertainment is a multifaceted experience — from dialogue and plotting on down to the dick jokes and car chases.

The idea of 21 Jump Street was certainly a charming turn on the remake genre, but it doesn't extend much beyond that.