I loved the Channing Tatum-Jonah Hill brom-edy 21 JUMP STREET. The reboot was fun, clever, and I was genuinely rooting for the two buddies as they took down a nasty drug dealer by posing as kids in a local school. Sure, the whole concept was hokey but the actors and directors seemed perfectly at ease with that hokiness. I was trying to figure out what had gone wrong with the only patchily funny sequel, 22 JUMP STREET and I think it comes down two things. First off, there isn't enough warm-hearted bromance before we get to the debbie-downer homo-social break-up. As a result the bickering to fun-stuff ratio is just off. Second, we get it: you're smart and post-modern and meta-clever! All those jokes about how sequels suck, and movie audiences just want the same dang thing over and over, and how the budget all goes on cheesy action shots just made me feel like the movie was poking fun at me for liking what I got in the original and wanting it again. All that winking at the camera just undermined by ability to sympathise with the characters and that's fatal - because whatever else this movie has, it should have heart.
