22 Jump Street

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, back on the same wavelength, and that wavelength is the whole movie.

That's not a knock. That's the point. These two feed off each other so naturally that you stop watching a plot and start watching two guys riff. One sets it up, the other knocks it down, and then they swap. It's the kind of back-and-forth you can't manufacture in a writers' room. Either the two leads have it or they don't, and these two absolutely have it.

Two guys, one joke engine, no brakes.

The movie is funny at times and flat-out hilarious at others. I laughed more than I planned to. Way more.

Ice Cube kills it again. The man nods, and it's funny. He does the exasperated boss thing better than just about anybody, and the scene about halfway through where the boys report back to him is the single hardest I laughed all night. You know the one when you get there.

And it's not just the top of the bill doing the heavy lifting. The rest of the cast piles on and adds to it. Everybody's in on the joke, nobody's coasting, and the whole thing just keeps rolling.

Stay for the credits. I'm serious. Do not get up. They earned that bit and it's worth sitting through the lights coming up.

I watched this with my kids and we all had a good time with it, which doesn't always happen. Usually somebody's on their phone by minute forty. Not this time.

What gets me is how easy this could have gone wrong. Buddy cop comedy sequels have a pretty rough track record, and I went in with my expectations parked somewhere around the basement. Came out grinning. It clears the bar and then some.

It stuck with me too. I was still thinking about bits from it days later, which is more than I can say for most comedies I put on and forget by breakfast.

Would I watch it again? Yeah, without hesitating. Would I tell you to watch it? Everybody, top to bottom. This is a comedy that actually works, and that's rarer than it should be.

Two guys, one joke engine, no brakes. I'm in.