21 Jump Street vs. 22 Jump Street: The First Movie Is Still the Better Bust
I have watched 21 Jump Street about nine times.
I've watched 22 Jump Street around fifteen times.
And somehow I fell asleep during 22 Jump Street this time.
I think that tells you almost everything you need to know about these movies.
Because I still love this ridiculous franchise—but going back through the Jump Street universe makes one thing pretty obvious:
21 Jump Street is the better movie.
And the weirdest part is that neither movie feels much like the television show they're supposedly continuing.
Wait, 21 Jump Street Was a Drama?
If you discovered Jump Street through Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, going backward to the original 21 Jump Street TV series can be startling.
The Stephen J. Cannell/Patrick Hasburgh show was a late-'80s police drama about young-looking cops going undercover in schools. Johnny Depp's Tom Hanson, Peter DeLuise's Doug Penhall, Holly Robinson's Judy Hoffs and Dustin Nguyen's Harry Ioki dealt with stories considerably heavier than Schmidt accidentally shooting somebody's penis off.
The movies take the basic premise and turn the volume toward R-rated buddy comedy, absurdity and self-parody.
And somehow it works.
Johnny Depp Actually Makes These Movies Part of the Show's Universe
Johnny Depp famously became much bigger than 21 Jump Street.
For years, the show felt like something he had escaped on the way toward becoming the guy from Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Pirates of the Caribbean and everything else that transformed him into one of Hollywood's most recognizable stars.
Which makes his appearance in the 2012 movie hilarious.
He's not simply playing some random cameo.
He's Officer Tom Hanson again.
And standing beside him is Peter DeLuise as Doug Penhall.
Depp reportedly had conditions for coming back: Peter DeLuise had to appear with him, and Hanson had to die.
That's commitment to the bit.
It also does something unexpectedly cool for the franchise.
If Hanson and Penhall are the same cops from the television series, then Schmidt and Jenko aren't reboot replacements.
They're the next generation of the same Jump Street program.
Holly Robinson Peete also returns as Judy Hoffs.
Suddenly this ridiculous comedy is technically connected to the considerably more serious television drama that inspired it.
I love that.
21 Jump Street Is Basically a Perfectly Built Buddy Comedy
The first movie understands structure.
Schmidt and Jenko start as opposites.
One was miserable in high school.
The other ruled high school.
Then they go undercover and discover that everything has changed.
Suddenly Schmidt fits in.
Jenko doesn't.
Their friendship changes.
The investigation escalates.
The drug plot closes in.
And everything crashes together in the third act.
It's the structure of the classic action buddy movie—something in the neighborhood of Lethal Weapon if Lethal Weapon had replaced most of the existential despair with dick jokes.
The story moves.
The jokes serve the characters.
The characters serve the plot.
And the supporting cast is ridiculous.
Dave Franco is perfectly irritating as Eric.
Brie Larson is Molly, Schmidt's misguided undercover romantic obsession—and she's noticeably missing when the sequel rolls around.
Ellie Kemper plays the teacher who is VERY interested in Jenko.
Chris Parnell brings his particular brand of jaded weirdness to the school.
Lindsey Broad from The Office pops up.
Nick Offerman basically announces the movie's entire philosophy by telling everybody that the people in charge are out of ideas and are recycling something from the past.
The movie knows it's a reboot.
It knows reboots are stupid.
Then it becomes a surprisingly great reboot.
Binge Now.
22 Jump Street Has a Different Problem
22 Jump Street knows sequels are stupid too.
That's the joke.
Do the same thing again.
Spend more money.
Move them from high school to college.
Make everything bigger.
The problem is that the movie occasionally becomes the thing it's making fun of.
The direction feels looser.
There seems to be more room for improvisation.
Scenes breathe longer.
Sometimes that's hilarious.
Sometimes the actors suck all the oxygen out of the room and you're sitting there waiting for the next scene.
That's probably how I managed to fall asleep during approximately my 15th viewing.
The first movie feels constructed.
The second sometimes feels assembled from very funny people being allowed to keep going.
Jillian Bell Almost Steals the Entire Sequel
Then Jillian Bell shows up as Mercedes.
And suddenly I am awake again.
Mercedes is easily one of my favorite things in 22 Jump Street.
Bell has this incredible deadpan hostility toward Jonah Hill where almost everything she says sounds like she's personally offended that Schmidt continues to exist.
Then there's the fight.
Beautiful.
More Mercedes, please.
Ice Cube Discovers Schmidt Is Sleeping With His Daughter
The other sequence that absolutely works is Schmidt discovering that the girl he's been dating, Maya, is Captain Dickson's daughter.
Because there are few cinematic forces more reliable than:
ANGRY ICE CUBE DAD ENERGY.
Watching Ice Cube realize Schmidt has been sleeping with his daughter—and watching Jenko realize it approximately five seconds later—is probably one of the funniest sequences in either movie.
Ice Cube's rage becomes its own special effect.
Peter Stormare Has Entered the Chat
Then we get Peter Stormare as The Ghost.
This is a guy who terrified audiences as Gaear Grimsrud in Fargo and later played one of cinema's wonderfully unsettling versions of Satan in Constantine.
Now he's fighting Schmidt and Jenko.
There goes the street cred.
Okay, not really.
I completely understand why they cast him.
You need somebody who walks onscreen and immediately registers as dangerous European movie villain, and Peter Stormare can accomplish that before he even says anything.
Is Wyatt Russell the Bad Guy?
The movie also plays around nicely with Wyatt Russell as Zook.
He's exactly suspicious enough that you're waiting for the reveal.
But Russell plays Jenko's affection for his new football brother pretty genuinely.
Their friendship becomes an intentionally ridiculous mirror of Schmidt and Jenko's relationship.
If you're looking backward through Wyatt Russell's career after Black Mirror, Goon: Last of the Enforcers or his run as John Walker/U.S. Agent in Marvel, here's some earlier, softer Russell.
He has an easy likability here that makes the misdirection work.
Look at This Comedy Bench
Both movies are stacked with people who either were already hilarious or became even more recognizable later.
Nick Offerman.
The Lucas Brothers.
Johnny Pemberton.
Joe Chrest.
Marc Evan Jackson.
Dax Flame.
Jimmy Tatro.
And that's before getting into all the little cameos and surprise appearances.
The sequel even brings Dave Franco's Eric and Rob Riggle's Mr. Walters back for a wonderfully stupid prison visit.
That's exactly the kind of callback a sequel should make.
But What Happened to the OTHER Jump Street Team?
Here's something I still wish these movies had explored.
In the first movie we meet Fugazy and Jr. Jr., played by Dakota Johnson and Rye Rye.
They're basically the hyper-performing female Jump Streeters.
While Schmidt and Jenko are destroying property, forgetting their fake identities and barely surviving their assignment, these two give off the impression that somewhere inside this organization there are actually cops who are GOOD at this.
Then the movies barely do anything with them.
Why?!
Dakota Johnson obviously went on to become a major star.
Rye Rye brought a completely different energy.
If this franchise ever really does come back, expanding those characters instead of simply doing Schmidt-and-Jenko-go-undercover-again would immediately give it somewhere new to go.
So Where Is 23 Jump Street?
22 Jump Street ends with one of the best sequel-credit jokes ever made, pitching increasingly ridiculous imaginary sequels.
23 Jump Street: Medical School.
25 Jump Street: A Semester at Sea.
Cooking school.
Flight academy.
Dance academy.
Space.
The joke is that this franchise could continue forever while repeating exactly the same formula.
And naturally Hollywood has spent years talking about actually making another one.
If 23 Jump Street ever becomes real, give Dakota Johnson and Rye Rye something substantial to do.
Bring back the larger Jump Street organization.
Let Schmidt and Jenko discover they're no longer the only interesting undercover cops in the building.
That could bang.
Johnny Spoiler's Jump Street Rankings
21 Jump Street — BINGE NOW
Tighter story. Better structure. Great supporting cast. The jokes move with the plot instead of stopping it.
22 Jump Street — BINGE LATER
Still very funny. Jillian Bell nearly steals it. Ice Cube's dad rage is magnificent. But it's looser, flatter in places and occasionally feels like everybody was allowed one improv take too many.
And finally:
21 Jump Street: The TV Series — BINGE NOW
Go back and watch it.
Not because it's secretly the same kind of comedy.
Because it isn't.
That's what makes this franchise so strange.
A relatively serious television police drama launched Johnny Depp, disappeared into pop-culture history, and decades later transformed into an R-rated Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum buddy comedy.
Then Johnny Depp walked back into that comedy as Tom Hanson, bringing Peter DeLuise's Doug Penhall along with him.
For a few completely insane minutes, the old show and the new movies occupy the same world.
Somehow that shouldn't work.
Neither should 21 Jump Street.
But the first movie absolutely does.
More Movies Johnny Spoiler Can't Stop Rewatching
If you've watched 22 Jump Street fifteen times even though you apparently don't always stay awake through it, you're probably our kind of movie person.
Binge-Watchers Podcast with Johnny Spoiler is where we revisit cult favorites, forgotten movies, horror, action, comedy and those movies we've watched so many times that we've started noticing the background characters.
Some are Binge Now.
Some are Binge Later.
And some probably shouldn't have gotten past Jump Street.
🎧 Listen to Binge-Watchers Podcast with Johnny Spoiler and find your next movie obsession.
