21 Jump Street
As time goes on, story ideas that were
once relatively serious can seem increasingly comical. This is a trend that
Hollywood has increasingly noticed; starting with 2004’s adaptation of Starsky
and Hutch, it has become increasingly common to repurpose old properties into
the new millennium with a fresh coat of irony. Just this year we’ve seen two, Dark Shadows and new Jonah Hill comedy, 21 Jump Street. The new film takes place
in the same universe as the 80s TV show, and indeed several of the original
cast members have brief cameos. Unlike the original show, however, this
installment does not hesitate even slightly going for laughs above all else.
We begin with a brief prologue
showing out two main characters, Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko
(Channing Tatum), in high school. Schmidt is the smart dweeb who gets picked on
by dumb jock Jenko, but when the two later attend the police academy together,
both realize it is in their best interest to work together and they quickly
become friends. However, neither is particularly good at the job—Schmidt is not
assertive or confidant enough to be much of an intimidating presence to
criminals, and Jenko too dumb to master the finer delicacies of the job*. The
police chief (played in one hilarious scene by Ron Swanson himself, Nick
Offerman) decides that the two nitwits would be better used in the newly
restarted Jumpstreat program to infiltrate a local high school undercover and
find the source of potent new drug that has found its way to the market.
Unsurprisingly, things do not go smoothly.
*He
has quite a bit of trouble with the Miranda rights, for example. Of course, the
film itself gets them wrong—a fairly major plot point is that Jenko/Schmidt’s
first arrest is bungled because they fail to correctly Mirandize the suspect
upon arrest. You don’t actually have to read Miranda rights upon
arrest, only before an interrogation.
21
Jump Street has a very tongue-in-cheek approach, which is probably the way
to go with subject matter as inherently ridiculous as this. One character
mentions that Tatum looks like he’s “like, 40”, and the police chief has an almost uncomfortably fourth-wall
breaking moment where he mentions that the people in charge these days are just
recycling ideas from the 80s and not coming up with anything fresh and new. The
approach works, and the movie is pretty consistently funny.
Jonah Hill is good as a character
that is superficially similar but actually quite different than his star-making
role in Superbad. Schmidt is dorky,
but much more intelligent and less crass than Seth, which makes the film’s plot
work. Once the two cops get to school, they find things have changed since
their own days in high school. The cool kids are the smart, environmentally
conscious gang—the coolest kid on campus, and the main drug seller (played by
James Franco’s younger brother Dave), is on his way to Berkeley. Despite
Jenko’s best efforts, it is Schmidt who falls in with the popular kids, while
Jenko befriends the nerds. It’s a role reversal that actually works quite well,
and is a well of humor the film taps consistently throughout the film. Channing
Tatum too sells it; the knock on him as an actor in the past was a certain
discomfort on the screen, but he seems to be getting over that for the most
part. Tatum is legitimately funny here.
The movie tries to be something of
an action-comedy, but the attempts at action (especially in the film’s climax)
seem halfhearted. They don’t really work on their own terms, but usually the
film manages to slip in some sort of ironic observation about them, and these
are usually pretty good. During a car chase, for example, both Schmidt and
Jenko are continuously baffled by the lack of things exploding. Indeed, the
movie is fairly Meta, and one gets the feeling that some of the
self-referential humor was perhaps slipped past the studio.
Whatever the case, this is not a
movie that is funny enough for me to ever feel a need to revisit, but its
likeable leads and entertainingly meta humor are certainly good enough to be
worth a watch.
6.5 Decent/Good. B-.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
There are few directors more
prolific than Woody Allen, and it’s a rare year that he doesn’t have a film
coming out*. It’s just too bad that I don’t like them better—Allen, as a writer
more so than a director, is not someone whose voice and sensibility I really
connect with (though I do respect his individuality). Admittedly I haven’t seen
a ton of Woody films, but of what I’ve seen I only particularly liked Midnight in Paris. Still, I thought it
would be worth my time to check out one of his more critically well-received
films in recent years, 2008’s Vicky
Cristina Barcelona.
*Allen
is like the anti-Terrence Malick, goes both to their respective schedules as
well as film styles, which couldn’t be more different.
Vicky and Cristina are two
girlfriends on vacation in Barcelona, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) so she can do some
research for her Master’s on Catalonian art, and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson)
because she wants to have fun. The two are quite dissimilar—Cristina is
broad-minded, free-spirited, and directionless, while Vicky is more grounded
and WASP-y. Not long into their journey the two encounter Juan Antonio (Javier
Bardem), who invites the girls for a weekend with him in Oviedo to see the
sights, drink wine, and “make love”. Vicky is offended by his boldness but
Cristina is intrigued, and she persuades Vicky to come along. Things soon
become complicated though as both girls develop feelings for Juan Antonio, and
it doesn’t help when his unstable ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, who won a
Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role) reenters the picture.
VCB is a relaxed, unambitious (not
meant as an insult) film. I suppose it would probably be labeled as a romantic
comedy, but it isn’t really funny, because it doesn’t really try to be. It’s
more of a romantic drama/travelogue for Catalonia*, and it mostly works on a
low-key sort of level. There is
little plot to speak of, but it doesn’t really need one, as we spend some time
exploring Barcelona and Oviedo with these characters.
*The
tone and feel is not dissimilar to what Midnight in Paris did with Paris, though what the film is
doing thematically is not related.
For the most part, the Woody-isms are
dialed down, though they are still present—Vicky’s fiancée Doug (Chris Messina)
makes reference to “pseudo-intellectuals”, a weirdly frequent punching bag for
Allen. This is an actor’s movie,
and the cast is great. Bardem and Cruz are both in their element, and seem very
comfortable working in their native country. Cruz in particular is great as the
simultaneously dangerous and sensual Maria Elena, and her Oscar win is not
undeserved. Bardem is charming as Juan Antonio, and plays him with a sort of
gentle charm that is world’s away from his turn in No Country for Old Men the year before. Rebecca Hall is good as the
lead, though as the Woody mouthpiece (there’s one in each of his movies) she occasionally
struggles with his more Woody-is dialogue. Patricia Clarkson is good in a small
role as Vicky’s aunt Judy, and the only weak link is Scarlett Johansson, though
even she is merely mediocre.
The core of the movie is the various
romantic entanglements surrounding Juan Antonio, and while it is all well-handled
enough, there is an awful lot of strange subtext that is lurking in this film.
Woody Allen is known as a director who works out his own psychological issues
in his films, and there’s a lot to unpack here—a psychosexual therapist could
have a field day. Allen seems to have very particular ideas about gender and
love and lust that he is trying to express here, though I’m not entirely sure
what exactly they are. His portrayal of women here is…odd. The four main female
characters are all depicted as flighty and unsure of themselves romantically
and sexually, to one degree or another—Cristina is a serial monogamist (and
later polyamorist) who can’t figure out what she’s looking for, and Maria Elena
is jealous, combustible, and probably not totally sane. Vicky and Judy are both
involved in much more traditional relationships, but both are unhappy in them
and unwilling to do anything about it. The men (Juan Antonio, Doug, and Judy’s
husband Mark) on the other hand are all pretty content with their chosen path,
though the movie doesn’t necessarily condone those paths, especially for
materialistic career-man Doug. It means something, but I’m honestly not sure
exactly what Woody is trying to say here, or even if it is intentional.
Unsurprisingly, the camerawork and cinematography
are beautiful, and it’s never an unpleasant experience spending time with the
characters in Catalonia. Of course, it would be even more pleasant if the
exceedingly annoying voiceover was ditched. The narrator (Christopher Welch)
alternates between stating the obvious (“Cristina loved the church”, as we see
Cristina admiring the church) and saying things that should have been left for
the movie to show us—the maxim of “show, don’t tell” is a hard and fast cliché
for a reason in the movie business.
Strange psychosexual feminist
subtext aside, this is a pleasant little movie with interesting and
exceptionally well-acted characters. The Woody-isms are present but not as
annoying as in some of his movies, though the addition of a completely redundant
and bland narrator doesn’t help things. It’s a fine movie.
6.5 Decent/Good. C+.
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