Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith

Movies

Lame ‘22 Jump Street’ is a forced copycat of the original

What’s the difference between “21 Jump Street” and “22 Jump Street”? Same as the difference between getting a 21 and a 22 at blackjack.

The sequel to one of the funniest films of the last five years is so repetitious, so manic, so forced and so convinced it’s clever to be lame as long as you keep telling the audience you’re being lame and that its title seems like a bewildering typo. Surely the franchise wasn’t due to run this short of ideas until about “28” or “29 Jump Street”?

After a senseless slapstick opening scene that seems like something cut out of a 1988 Sylvester Stallone cop flick, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) go undercover on a college campus for an imagination-free rehash of the first film’s plot to bust a drug ring. Schmidt, for no discernible reason short of science fiction, hooks up with the college’s hottest girl (Amber Stevens), while Jenko learns in class that it’s not cool to use homophobic slurs (you know, of the kind Hill was caught using last week).

Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill head to college in “22 Jump Street.”Columbia Pictures

Except for occasional bright moments — I liked Jillian Bell as Schmidt’s girlfriend’s crazy-eyed roommate, who keeps making old-age jokes about him — the movie keeps taking already-tired gags and beating them to death. In half a dozen different scenes, Jenko vaults athletically up and down stairways and the exteriors of buildings, while Schmidt keeps having to take the long way around. By the time the guys take turns in a frat-initiation ritual, you can write the gags yourself.

The first movie’s gibes at ’80s cop buddy movies were dead-on, but despite having the same directors (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), “22” has little wit. Instead, it just throws in senseless chases and shootouts — in a particularly inept library scene, the villains miss our boys with pistols from a distance of maybe 6 feet, and then the detectives escape in a golf cart dressed up like a football helmet for no reason except it looks goofy. (Then, out of nowhere, a Benny Hill joke.)

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum go for a ride in the “helmet-mobile” in “22 Jump Street.”Columbia Pictures

When the script isn’t telling us how pathetic and meretricious sequels are (too true!), it’s going overboard with retro gay-panic humor. One scene depends on Jenko being grossed out by pretending to be in a gay couple (and even, eww, holding hands with Schmidt) in a therapist’s office. Many other scenes have the same premise. We’re going backwards here, fellas. These characters were interesting in the first film.

After the third or fourth exhausting, brainless chase, you’d think the movie would be wrapping up, but no — there’s still 25 crashingly dull minutes to go, so a few million can be blown on a spring break trip (but it’s cool, because the characters joke about the budget, too). More dumb shootouts and fights ensue. To cap it, one of the stupidest jokes in this (or any other) movie comes in at the very end: Ordered by Schmidt to say something cool before lobbing a grenade, Jenko shouts, “Something cool!” Lord and Miller are so convinced this one’s a winner that they repeat it two or three more times.

Being intentionally boring isn’t the same as being interesting, and being intentionally trite isn’t the same thing as being original. Guys, just because your characters keep saying they’re too old for this s - - t doesn’t mean it isn’t true.