21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street seemed on the surface like yet another old TV show adapted into a movie by a Hollywood that's bankrupt for ideas. And you know what? They actually acknowledge that fact within the movie. Unlike many of these situations, though, Jump Street has an infectious energy to it. It's directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who I previously underestimated when they made Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, a movie that looked kinda generic but wound up being quite clever and fun. I've decided not to underestimate these guys anymore; I like what they're doing.

Reimagined as an action comedy, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum star as two underachieving cops, who, after a botched arrest (Tatum never learned the Miranda Rights, a running gag through the movie) are assigned to the revived Jump Street division, where young-looking cops go undercover at local schools as students. Their mission is to find the source of a new synthetic drug that is growing increasingly popular among the students.

They are given new identities but wind up getting themselves mixed up and have to take each others' classes. I thought it was an interesting spin and a good opportunity for comedy, because rather than seeing them fall into the same social statuses they inhabited as teens, we get to see their situations reversed. High school is a much different place than it was even ten years ago. There's a funny joke where they look at all the new cliques that have emerged and can't figure out what the hell they are.

The cast is all around good. I'm always ready to like Jonah Hill in things, and he's been having a pretty good run lately. Channing Tatum really surprised me. He's never really stood out in anything to me. I assumed there must have been something I wasn't seeing, since I knew Steven Soderbergh has been using him a bunch these days. The strong supporting cast includes Nick Offerman, Ice Cube, Ellie Kemper, Brie Larson and Rob Riggle.

I don't want to ruin things, because there are a lot of big laughs in 21 Jump Street, and a surprisingly fun story. Screenwriters Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall manage to juggle a lot of funny situations and running gags throughout the movie, and by the time they pile up at the end, they result in some really good payoffs, one after the other.

It's only March, but I think 21 Jump Street is a pretty strong contender for the comedy of 2012. It felt like one of those movies where the screenplay, cast, and director just clicked, and there's a real sense of liveliness to it as a result. You know how if you're doing something, and you can sense that it's good, your enthusiasm makes it even better? I think that's what happened.

30 Minutes or Less

30 Minutes or Less is a new action comedy by Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer that could have gone either way. Luckily, it went the right way. It's fast-paced and silly, with well-drawn characters and a simple, clever premise that leaves lots of room for the performers to bounce off of each other.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Nick, a slacker who delivers pizzas for a living while his friends are moving up in the world. Aziz Ansari plays his roommate and best friend, Chet. Danny McBride and Nick Swardson play Dwayne and Travis, two more slackers who are even more slackery than Eisenberg, who hatch a scheme to get someone else to rob a bank for them, so they can secure the funds to hire a hitman to knock off McBride's lottery winning dad. They do this by ordering a pizza and strapping a bomb to Nick and telling him he has 12 hours to rob the bank.

That's it. From there on out, it's just the actors bouncing off of each other and having fun. The dialogue sounds pretty largely ad-libbed by the actors, but it's a testament to the screenwriter that I couldn't always tell what was scripted and what wasn't.

I should also point out that the four leads aren't the only funny ones. Michael Pena is hilarious as the hitman McBride is hiring. Though normally a serious actor, he's proven himself a great comedic performer with bizarre turns in Jody Hill's work, like Observe and Report and a scene stealing role in the second season of Eastbound and Down, HBO's pitch-black comedy starring the king scene-stealer himself, Danny McBride.

Ruben Fleischer seems to be a pretty competent director. Zombieland was not only funny, but a really well made film. In 30 Minutes or Less, he seems to know his job is largely to step back and let his cast do their thing. The action is pretty well done, too.

The movie is probably easiest to compare to Pineapple Express, which, while I laughed a lot at it, didn't really work for me in the end. I thought the third act was a mess, and it abandoned the comedy for action and violence. I also thought Gary Cole was poorly used as the villain, who was really given nothing to do. Also, I'm just not too into the stoner thing. 30 Minutes or Less is a lot more successful for me. It keeps the action and the laughs properly coming all the way to the end.