With so many remakes and reboots coming out of the Hollywood woodwork, it was only a matter of time before one came along that was actually worth watching – and not just for the irony.

Then again, the Johnny Depp-led television series that inspired the recently released ’21 Jump Street’ never really became a household name. Other than Depp’s top billing, the ’80s show never made its mark on American pop culture quite like ‘The Golden Girls’ or ‘The Cosby Show.’

So with low stakes and no die-hard fan base to please, the filmmakers of ’21 Jump Street’ chose to take a route of self-awareness over direct homage. Nothing in the movie is free from ridicule, least of all its unoriginal premise, which it not-so-subtly acknowledges time and again. When assigning two rookie cops (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) to a ‘canceled program from the ’80s,’ a deputy simply tells them that they ‘lack creativity.’

The movie follows nerdy Schmidt (Hill) and former jock Jenko (Tatum), rivals in high school but best friends since enduring police training together. After botching their first arrest, they’re forced to go undercover as high school students to bust a drug ring. Jenko is thrilled, eager to relive adolescent glory. But as a previous bleach-blond Slim Shady wannabe, Schmidt is less so.

Hill and Tatum are more than believable as a pair of dimwitted but well-intentioned cops, infusing the ‘Bad Boys’ storyline with an undeniable sweetness. Their characters are typical ones that often appear in films by directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, whose last movie was the family-friendly ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.’ Sure, the film is a story about parties and explosive car chases. But it’s also a story of friendship far greater than a typical bromance. When Jenko tells Schmidt he would take a bullet for him, it rings genuine without a hint of schmaltz.

The two soon navigate unfamiliar high school territory. These days, students care about the environment. They wear backpack straps. They even study. ‘I blame ‘Glee,” Jenko says.

However, both jump at the opportunity to do things differently: Schmidt wants to compensate for four years of unpopularity while Jenko longs to relive his glory days.

But they end up switching roles – Schmidt falls in with the cool clique, and Jenko makes friends with a band of chemistry geeks – and ’21 Jump Street’ veers in the opposite direction of its source material. Depp’s television series was more of a procedural crime drama, while this loose reboot makes no attempt to be anything more than an absurd but thoroughly enjoyable farce.

Even as a recent Oscar-nominee for his dramatic turn in ‘Moneyball,’ Hill proves he’s still very much in the business of making people laugh. Having spent five years co-writing the script, he’s dedicated to the material. When the comedy calls for gags, he runs into cars and wears skin-tight Peter Pan leggings in a heartbeat.

But the movie’s biggest surprise is Tatum, an unexpectedly adept comedian. After being typecast as a stiff bag of meat in movies like ‘Step Up,’ ‘Dear John’ or ‘The Vow,’ he’s finally at his most comfortable here, using his chemistry with Hill to maximum effect. He plays the dumb cop trope for all it’s worth, consistently forgetting his Miranda rights in a running gag that pays off at the movie’s end.

A couple of noteworthy cameos include rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube, who plays a stereotypical trash-talking police captain. Another is Nick Offerman, who plays a deputy very similar to his Ron Swanson persona on ‘Parks and Recreation.’ But the movie belongs to Hill and Tatum. They’re treading ground that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence visited before in ‘Bad Boys,’ but with enough sweetness and youthfulness that it feels new.

That just might be the calling card for ’21 Jump Street.’ There’s nothing about this buddy comedy we haven’t seen before, but this is the rare recycled Hollywood reboot that deserves attention for what it does right.

dataroy@syr.edu

Published on March 21, 2012 at 12:00 pm