22 Jump Street (2014) review

Police officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) return to action - under direct order of Cpt. Dickson (Ice Cube) - with the goal of investigating a strange drug making its rounds around an area college, taking the two in two different directions: Jenko ends up the star receiver of the football team and Schmidt falls for an art student (Amber Stevens). While openly announcing that the plot structure is lifted from the first film is a sneaky little meta-maneuver ("do what you did the first time!" commands Mr. Cube), that doesn't fully exonerate the copycat-ism, nor does the plot ever rise above lunk-headed bro culture (the homoeroticism of Tatum's 'bromance' with Wyatt gets over-played). For pure laughs, however, this has more going for it than a lot of 2014's 'comedies,' with the side characters - most notably Jillian Bell's scene-stealing drug lord as well as Ice Cube's angry father/boss and Rob Riggle - keeping it engaging.