Hate sequels? Well, tough, because Ice Cube loves them. He will ride the gravy train of any project for as long as he wants (Next Friday, Friday After Next, Barbershop 2, Ride Along 2, Are We There Yet, Are We Done Yet…seriously is he done yet?), and this time I have to applaud his shameless re-hashing. 22 Jump Street is the most hilarious movie of the year.

Jenko and Schmidt (Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill) are still riding high from the unlikely success of their undercover operation, only to find that they really aren’t well-suited for anything else. So they go back to a new and improved headquarters directly across the street from their old base. This time, they are headed to a college campus where a student has died after using a new trendy drug. Everyone keeps reminding them that all they have to do is exactly what they did last time, in a brilliantly clever reference to how cheesy and unnecessary most sequels are.

But they do not do anything exactly the same way as before. This time Jenko’s cover “Brad” is super popular and is the star of the football team while Schmidt’s cover “Doug” is the odd man out, doing most of the police work and playing the part of a jealous girlfriend. They still have a few gross-out moments and show the effects of the new drug during Brad and Doug’s hysterical trip, but the writers and actors were smart enough to alter certain details and wink at the camera at all the right moments. They make fun of their other film projects and real-life quirks, like how Ice Cube is very far from the young rapper who was “Straight Outta Compton” and how Jonah Hill’s persona is very close to that of Seth Rogen’s.

All of the original castmates, like Nick Offerman as Deputy Chief Hardy and Rob Riggle as Mr. Walters, are just as outrageously funny as before, but newcomer Amber Stevens (the fresh-faced Maya) effortlessly lightens some of the heavier moments and Jillian Bell (the amusingly sour-faced Mercedes) nearly steals the show from both the male leads with her acerbic cracks on how old they look. Wyatt Russell (Zook) also ups the bro factor by giving Brad a best friend who is also hot, dopey and endearing.

Typically, the best jokes are saved for the trailer and the rest of the film is just a series of awkward silences until the next funny thing happens, but 22 Jump Street is so packed with awesome jokes that rarely 30 seconds went by without someone in the theater laughing out loud. Go see it, and be prepared to go and see it again so you can catch the dialogue that was drowned out by your inevitable giggling fits.

 Final Grade: A+

About The Author

Stephanie Taylor

Co-Editor/Entertainment Reporter

She may be a traffic engineer by day (hence the ‘stopsigngirl’ alias), but do not let her technical skills or multiple calculators fool you. Stephanie Taylor has a way with words. She will destroy any opponent in Scrabble, and get 50 points for using all 7 of her letters in the word “destroy.” She can a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-e you in a spelling bee, having competed in no less than ten as a child. She uses correct punctuation in her text messages. It’s no wonder that copy editing comes naturally to her, and she is happy to fine tune the work of other writers before it reaches TRR readers.

Proofreading is not all that Stephanie loves to do. Regular reading without the proof is just fine, and she also loves to write. In fact, Steph has been writing since the tender age of 6 when she penned her would-be bestseller Mouse in Jail. It “would be” if all literary critics were in Kindergarten. Since elementary school, Stephanie has helped publish newsletters, yearbooks, and the Arts & Entertainment section of The Rice Thresher, Rice University’s student newspaper.

Stephanie’s other gigs have included singing her heart out in the chorus of My Fair Lady in Houston, doing improv comedy in front of hundreds of people in Atlanta, and teaching A.P. English in Los Angeles. She loves to travel and have cultural adventures like tubing down a river in Ecuador, dancing in a South Asian festival, or riding a ferry from Italy for 19 hours just to get real Greek food. Cooking and Yoga are also among Stephanie’s list of favorite things to do, but she cannot do them at the same time.

This native Texan genuinely adores reporting on entertainment as much as she loves to entertain, and is looking forward to learning more about what the D.C. area has to offer and sharing that news with you.

Stephanie Taylor also likes to write about herself in the third person.

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