21 Jump Street is my favorite movie of the year so far! The dialogue is witty, the characters real (if exaggerated) and the action refreshing. The chemistry between Tatum Channing and Jonah Hill is remarkable. They seem like extremely unlikely best friends.

The film is based on an 80s TV show by the same name about young looking cops that infiltrate high schools and colleges to solve crime. Tatum Channing is Jenko, a classically good looking athlete whose only goal in life had been popularity till he tried to become a cop. Jonah Hill is Schmidt, a brilliant if socially stunted individual that doesn’t come into his own till he meets Jenko. The two find themselves at the police, Jenko unable to compete academically and Schmidt physically. Jenko and Schmidt combine forces to make a pretty good team, Jenko scraping by in the classroom and Schmidt managing to avoid stumbling over himself long enough to graduate.

Unfortunately the team is very much a screw up but they do have one thing going for them, they look young. After a particularly harsh berating by their captain Jenko and Schmidt are assigned to the one place their unique talents, and seeming youth, fit, 21 Jump Street. Jump Street is a team of young looking police officers that, like the original TV team, attempt to solve young adult crime. Their methods are unorthodox, their captain (played by Ice Cube) a classic TV/film archetype and their assignment an unusual one, find the supplier of a unique new hallucinogenic drug.

What makes 21 Jump Street so good, and original, is the complete role reversal of character. When Jenko and Schmidt arrive at the school they forget their respective characters and they get switched. Jenko gets assigned to AP Chemistry and Schmidt to the fluff classes including Drama. I don’t want to spoil the rest of the role reversal, it’s truly classic, but expect a fun change in the social structure.

The guys throw a party for the kids, complete with alcohol and pot, manage to win them over and begin the task of infiltrating the school. What happens when Schmidt for the first time becomes part of the popular crowd and Jenko the science outcasts is the stuff of classic film and elevates 21Jump Street to one of the best TV to film transitions that’s ever been done.

Surprisingly, the acting is pretty good, the characters well developed and the story elements superb. Everything fits together like a well planned puzzle. There is a sub plot of drug use but it doesn’t undermine the main plot or seem gratuitous. It just fits nicely into the larger puzzle.

You will probably love the film, I did!

Rating 4.5 stars out of 5.