21 Jump Street (MC: 69, RT: 86%)

[Tyrath]

I'm shocked that this is 100% on Rottentomatoes at the moment. Might see it after all. That trailer looked funny too.

[Indeed]

Remakes are often pretty shit, but every once in a while they hit the mark. I never watched the show itself, so I'm more willing to give it a chance to be funny. It's also Jonah Hill acting with a group of people that isn't necessarily made up of the same group that usually surrounds him. I'm cautiously optimistic that this might not be as bad as it has the potential to be.

[6souls]

Hollywood is littered with the carcasses of one-note performers who flare brightly, and quickly fade. Moviegoers fall for a cutup (Michael Cera) or a hunk (Chris Klein), only to ditch them when the affair grows stale. An implacable desire for surprise is hard-wired into the audience's DNA. So performers who can veer from that one note that brought them fame will thrive.

Actors like Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Their new buddy comedy, "21 Jump Street," opening next Friday, reworks their usual screen personas. A significantly slimmed-down Hill gets some sweetly funny romantic scenes, and Tatum plays his beefcake character for laughs. I interviewed the odd couple about "21 Jump Street" in a joint phone call last week.

"Channing has this great metaphor" for their unlikely partnership, Hill said. "If I was working beside another person who'd done a lot of comedy, it would be like what Channing calls the eighth bite of steak. It's still steak, it's still a good meal, but you've had seven other bites of it and you know what it tastes like already. I thought it was really important to have me and someone who came from more of an action background."

The idea of remaking the Reagan-era TV series about young-looking undercover cops in high school was pitched to Hill around the time of his success in "Superbad." His interest sparked when he saw it as a story of adults reverting to the immature behaviors and insecurities they thought they'd outgrown. "The movie I was interested in creating was like 'Bad Boys' meets a John Hughes movie," said Hill, who co-wrote the screenplay.

Tatum, who had never attempted comedy before, figured he'd get no better apprenticeship than working alongside Hill.

"He promised me he'd take care of me, and that was really the whole reason of me jumping on to this thing. It took some assuring. I was open to challenging myself like this and then he had to hold my hand and stroke my head and tell me that everything was going to be OK. I told him I'd blame it on him if I wasn't funny, and that was my out," Tatum said.

"I was a fear-driven beast the whole time, to not let Channing down," said Hill. "As an actor and a producer, I've been on both sides of being convinced to be in a movie and having to convince other people to be in a movie. The best thing ever is when you meet someone you like and respect and they're just cool about diving into something different."

"I would have beaten him up if he failed," Tatum added. "Comedy's so much harder than drama, actors ought to try it more. For comedy, you have to put yourself out there -- and it's a confusing, fickle thing. If you try to be funny, you're not going to be funny. You've got to just really believe it, and that's the thing Jonah taught me."

"21 Jump Street" is less a sharp departure for the stars than the latest evolutionary step in their careers. Hill was Oscar-nominated for his role as Brad Pitt's statistics-geek sidekick in the baseball drama "Moneyball." Tatum's crowded 2012 release slate includes two movies with art-film icon Steven Soderbergh, January's martial-arts revenge thriller "Haywire" and the upcoming "Magic Mike," an ensemble piece based on his pre-fame experiences as a male stripper.

Tatum bemoaned the scarcity of such genre-bending experiments. "That's what's kind of wrong with dramas and action movies now. There's not enough thrill, not enough comedy. Movies have gotten so simple-minded that we need to fill them out with a little more." That sameness is why there's a drought of worthwhile dramas, he said. "Drama's a bad word right now in the business."

"No one wants to see the same thing over and over again. You don't want to make the same thing over and over again," Hill said.

Each actor reaches beyond the well-known hits when asked which of his co-star's movies he likes best. Hill named Tatum's unheralded 2006 New York drama "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints." A virtual unknown at the time, he played a prison-bound street tough alongside Robert Downey Jr., Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest. "I think his performance as Antonio is one of the greatest performances by any young actor ever," Hill said. "It's so raw, it's so good."

Tatum praised Hill's work as the creepy title character in "Cyrus," an oddball indie romantic triangle involving a sad-sack suitor, his dream woman and her nightmare son. Hill played a possessive, stay-at-home mama's boy sabotaging the romance between Marisa Tomei and her would-be boyfriend, John C. Reilly.

"Not many people saw it, but I loved that movie," Tatum said. "It's so weird and so strange and I didn't know where it was going to go."

Both actors said they're eager to collaborate again, and the opportunity may not be far off. The studio has such high hopes for "21 Jump Street" that a sequel is already in the works.

http://www.vita.mn/story.php?id=141835733

[grantlogan]

This movie looks fucking hilarious, I don't understand all you Debbie Downers.

[Titanss]

I agree with the above poster, this movie is going to be funny as fuck

I liked the part where he says kids are weird these days, what the fuck are those things?

[Zerk]

Saw the trailer for this in every goddamn movie i've seen the past 5 months... made me sick of it.. but they finally showed the red band one during project x which made it a little better...

[6souls]

[kuronosan]

This movie was actually fucking good, and the subtext at the beginning about remakes was gold.

Loved the original cast cameos. The fact that they kept them as the same characters made it even better (though the ending was cheap).

Really happy that it didn't turn out to just be a remake and that it was just a comical take on the same universe as well as a jab at Hollywood fuckfaces.

[Tweek]

this shit was hilarious

[Sup3rB4d]

this shit was hilarious

Needed more Ice Cube.

[Kwijiboe]

"-AP-" CHEMISTRY BITCHES

[Fievel]

FUCK YOU, SCIENCE!

[Kuya]

Was actually a riot. Everybody i know loved this movie.

[Kingadem]

I didn't think it would be so funny. I couldn't stop laughing the first half of it. A big holy shit moment at the Narcs in the end.

[FNH]

Oh man so fucking funny from the beginning.

[Chun Liroy]

Just saw, good movie... Those people in the beginning of the thread sure were wrong.

[Foxer]

FUCK YOU, SCIENCE!

BEST PART OF THE MOVIE 44444444444444 SURE!

[Foxer]

Just saw, good movie... Those people in the beginning of the thread sure were wrong.

Just went back and read the entire page 1. lol assumptions.

[Headspace]

People at the beginning of the thread were too busy finger poppin each others assholes.

[Elvis]

so what the hell was the girl doing in the back of the threesome?