21 Jump Street

In preparation for the sequel coming out this weekend, I watched this with my sister and my father who had never seen it. He loved it.

21 Jump Street gets its origins from a TV show of the same name. Believe it or not it was actually the show that really got Johnny Depp's career off the ground.

The show was a Crime Drama procedural focused on a group of detectives who have youthful features. They were assigned to different schools and had to deal with different issues facing high schools at the time like drug use, homophobia, bullying, etc.

I'm not going to tell you the show was a complete hit because I didn't watch it. The only reason I know about it is because Johnny Depp was in it and they made this film adaptation a couple years back.

21 Jump Street is the story of Morton Schmidt (played by Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko (played by Channing Tatum). They are two young men who go to high school together but grew up in different circles. Jenko was a jock while Schmidt was a little bit of a nerd.

They follow those stereotypes and being in school at that time, that corresponded with their popularity in school. Jenko was a popular kid and Schmidt wasn't.

Well they both graduate and a couple years later join the Police and have big dreams about making it big as police officers. They become good friends on account that Schmidt is smart and Jenko is strong. The two work off each other's skills and help each other succeed.

But when they finally get on duty its really not what they expected. When an attempted bust goes wrong, the two of them are reassigned due to their youthful looks. And they get assigned to 21 Jump Street, an undercover program rehashed from the 80s because the guys making this stuff couldn't think of anything original. (Actual line from the movie)

This program is headed up by Ice-Cube, the stereotypical angry black captain. He has a name but you're just going to call him Ice-Cube so there's not really a point to saying his actual name.

They are assigned to a school where a new Synthetic drug is on the market. Here's what the drug does.