Jmunney's Blog

The team behind 21 Jump Street made the ingenious decision of making its ill-advised adaptation of an old TV show about ill-advisedly adapting an old TV show into a movie.  Making 22 Jump Street about the ill-advisedness of sequels is not an ingenious decision; that is not because it is the wrong idea, but because it is the obvious (albeit correct) idea.  That is to say, for 22 Jump Street to work, it has to go beyond that ill-advisedness concept.  This movie does acknowledge the ridiculousness of sending Officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) back to school again to infiltrate a drug ring again.  But whether it acknowledges it or not, being essentially the same movie all over again is bound to induce some fatigue.  There are the same constant jokes about how they look too old to be in school cranked up to 11, as well as the same initial role reversal.    The latter is not as inspired this time around, though, as Jenko joins the football team and is anointed the big man on campus, which is in line with the role he was used to prior to 21 Jump Street.  But at least Schmidt is not with a group of outcasts per se, so much as an alternative crowd, which he wins over with an impromptu performance at a poetry slam that earns him the nickname “Maya Angelou” (which effectively works as a loving tribute to the late poet laureate).

The separation of Schmidt and Jenko works to set up a love story of sorts, in which the former must work through his neediness and the latter his insensitivity.  This leads to the two of them frequently being mistaken for a gay couple, most notably in a therapy session with a psychology professor (a perfectly cast Marc Evan Jackson) who had them pegged as “partners” as soon as he met them.  This could be construed as gay panic, that most tired of bro-comedy gags, but it is actually quite the opposite.  Neither Schmidt nor (the formerly ignorant) Jenko would really mind being mistaken for gay.  If anything, 22 Jump Street emphasizes how okay they are with this a bit too much.  But it does lead to a triumphant moment in which Jenko gets to hilariously display what he has been learning in a human sexuality course and how open-minded he has become now that he he no longer carelessly throws around homophobic pejoratives like he did in high school.

Most of the lampshade-hanging sequel gags are not imaginative enough to make 22 Jump Street an unqualified success.  But there is one crowning success in this regard: the climactic chase scene through campus, which features some of the most conceptual humor in modern mainstream American cinema.  Schmidt and Jenko drive through the most expensive areas of campus, even though they could have very easily taken a route that would have led to far less damage.  Schmidt cries out how upset their superiors will be over having to pay for such expensive damages and the parallel implication here is obviously that movie studios will ultimately regret having the most expensive stunts for their comedy sequels when they are completely unnecessary.  I was cracking up throughout this sequence, though the audience I saw it with responded more vigorously to the broader moments, courtesy primarily of a frighteningly committed Ice Cube (returning as Schmidt and Jenko’s captain).  (SPOILER-Y item of note: Cube’s role is more similar to his in Ride Along than it is to 21 Jump Street, as Schmidt dates a girl who turns out to be the captain’s daughter.  This connection is only magnified by the resemblance between Amber Stevens – who plays his daughter – and Tika Sumpter – who played his sister in Ride.)  A cap is placed on the sequel meta-ness with a montage that plays during the credits that seems to provide a definitive answer regarding any potential further sequels.  It is the strongest sustained segment of the whole film, and it wins my vote for funniest scene of 2014.  That intensity cannot be maintained for the entirety of the running time, but it presents a closing argument of sorts that makes the hour and fifty minutes that precedes it wholly worth it. B

One More Point of Note: For a movie so aware of being a sequel and that even includes a gag about a contract dispute with an actor, it is a bit jarring that Brie Larson does not reprise her role from 21 Jump Street and that her absence is never acknowledged.  Although, I suppose that, as a huge Brie Larson fan, I was just more inclined to notice that than anyone else.

Edge of Tomorrow is a lot like a video game, and this is the first movie for which that is a compliment.  I’m not the first critic to make this observation, but I still feel compelled to mention it, because it is an observation that ought to be repeated.  Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage, who is stripped of his rank and forced into the front lines of battle in a war against an alien race known as the Mimics.  Cage is burned to death by the blood of an unusually large Mimic, and this sanguinary transition grants him the ability to repeat the same day over and over.  It may sound like it is just repeating the same time-looping concept that Groundhog Day perfected over 20 years ago, except with aliens and giant mechanical suits, but it actually proves that this is an idea that is far from exhausted.

Edge of Tomorrow is not based on a video game (in fact, it is adapted from the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka), but it feels like it is based on EVERY video game.  Or, at least every video game with a consistent storyline in which you can’t save your progress.  The environment and plot turns of each repeated day remain the same, so Cage knows, for example, after a few loops that a fellow soldier will be crushed by a plane.  So he pushes him out of the way, but that results in Cage being crushed by the plane.  Whenever one challenge is overcome, several more present themselves.  All of his deaths are certainly frustrating, but they are all followed by a more rewarding round through the game.

No effort is spared with the black comedy of Cage’s demises, as a series of whimsically edited montages present him crushed, exploded, run over by a Humvee, and shot in the head several times over.  If you have ever hated Tom Cruise, you will surely enjoy him getting wrung through the ringer, but I implore you to try to actually like him by appreciating his unbridled energy.

I have been a fan of Cruise for a while, so he does not need to win me over, but he hustles as hard as he can to convince everybody else.  The supporting cast shines as well, particularly (obviously) Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, a sergeant who was previously infected with the time-looping Mimic blood.  Her heroic exploits have earned her the nickname “Full Metal Bitch.”  It is a somewhat annoying moniker, but she no doubt lives up to it.  After meeting her in battle in the first loop, we are re-introduced to her (over and over) with an admiring shot of her in a one-arm plank in the training center.  The role is a tricky one, as she is expected to take absolutely no gumption from Cage (she’s no GI Jane trying to prove herself, it is just a given how awesome she is regardless of her gender) but also work at a disadvantage, considering that Cage keeps building up experience that she can never match.

Bill Paxton has more fun than any other actor this year as the sergeant in charge of Cage.  He kills it with a relish that suggests he has been waiting years for a role in which he can put Tom Cruise in his place.  Noah Taylor provides some expositional flavor as Dr. Carter, the only character that Cage and Vrataski can confide in regarding the time looping.

With a male and a female co-lead, it would seem inevitable that Edge of Tomorrow would throw romance into the mix.  That did not strike me as the best idea, as the relentlessness of the Mimics made it so that there really could not be enough time to focus on love.  Although, considering that Cage can always start over, he more or less had all the time in the world.  Unsurprisingly, spending the same day again and again with Rita leads Cage to fall in love with her.  So the real issue here with any potential romance is that she only has a day to develop feelings for him.  For the most part, EoT recognizes and abides by this limitation.  It does get around it a little bit in a way that may seem to be forcing the issue but is actually justified by the chemistry between Cruise and Blunt that is informed by the effect that Vrataski has on Cage during all his loops.  A final comparison to Groundhog Day is worth making: Phil Connors’ repetitions allow him to learn how to be the ultimately selfless person that everyone loves, while William Cage is in a lonely endeavor in which he knows that the fruits of his efforts may never be fully recognized by anybody. B+