I enjoyed the sly yuks of the first Jump Street movie, and this one is right at that level. If you had a good time with the first one at all, it’s hard to imagine you’ll leave disappointed.
What Works: The best thing this subtly clever franchise has going for it is self-awareness. It seems to be saying “We know that an eighties TV show to modern film adaptation is a terrible idea, now watch as we make it work.” The running joke of talking about unnecessary, brain-dead sequels and how wasteful and repetitively boring they are is a winner that produces belly laughs. [The during-the-credits sequence outlining future awful Jump Street sequels is hilarious.]
What Doesn’t: Amber Stevens is a terrific female lead, and a lot more interesting than Brie Larson was in the first Jump Street movie…so why does the film abandon her character and seem disinterested in the romance between her and Jonah Hill? Sure, there’s a twist to it, but so what? Surely, it would have been more interesting to keep pursuing it rather than just completely drop that plot and provide no real resolution.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Except for probably going in for the proto-typical Hill-kissing-Stevens ending, there’s not much I would add.