22 Jump Street 4K UHD Review

Bowing to Vietnamese Jesus

Utterly forthcoming, Nick Offerman states from the outset 22 Jump Street will be the same as 21 Jump Street. Ice Cube backs that up. Repeatedly.

The joke is that Hollywood sequels recycle themselves. Follow Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. Every event and every plot point plays identically – and that’s one example of hundreds.

Admire how well 22 Jump Street does this though, and totally, completely on purpose. This is more than story beats, (Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill infiltrating a school to find the dealer behind a new drug) because that’s obvious. Pay attention to the action, like the chase sequence on campus that happens concurrently to 21 Jump Street’s car chase. Typical, but go further. Spoken lines, character touches, brushing teeth in front of a mirror, and even crude humor (the blow job gag, leading to 22 Jump Street cleverly apologizing for homophobia in the previous movie). Everything is copied, until the dialog explicitly states it’s not. By then, 22 Jump Street moved to Mexico for Spring Break.

22 Jump Street solidified this series as self-skewering nonsense

And yes, 22 Jump Street follows the same character arcs, yet even those find a smart, clever twist. Tatum spent 21 Jump Street trying to fit into a radically altered high school culture. In college, he’s home among booze, football, and stupidity. Then he realizes no, he’s not like this anymore. For a two-movie series (so far) about idiots playing cops, there’s a genuine, charming sentiment about two 30-somethings accidentally pushed into adulthood. Forcibly. Awkwardly.

22 Jump Street doesn’t quite figure out what type of movie it is. If there’s a failing, that’s it. Comedy shifts between direct Airplane-like parody, action movie satire, and kooky industry in-shaming. 22 Jump Street can’t decide which is which, or maybe it doesn’t matter or particularly care. The jokes work. Tatum and Hill continue to mesh. By finale as a helicopter explodes (because 21 Jump Street ended with a boom too, following a copycat shoot-out), style isn’t a concern.

Uncovered in the infamous Sony email leak, someone pitched a Jump Street/Men in Black crossover. On the surface, it almost makes sense – both deal in buddy action comedy, and given Tatum/Hill’s talent, the MIB might one day call on them. But no, 22 Jump Street solidified this series as self-skewering nonsense. Asking it to be anything else – including a sci-fi comedy – denies Jump Street its muscle-headed, dopey identity.

Video

A boost over its predecessor, there’s more life to this 2K upscale. Nothing grandiose, but firm and stable, complete with sharp texture. Definition perks up, cleanly defined throughout. Facial texture matches excellent exteriors/establishing shots, and that goes for football stadiums, spring break locales, and the city.

Minor, often undetectable noise doesn’t mar quality. Clarity ranks highly, totally transparent to the digitally shot source material. Once on to the beaches, color saturation spikes, spilling over endless primaries. That’s better than prior where the slightly flat palette stays muted, short of football scenes where the jerseys add punch.

Refined contrast adds needed dimension, the HDR bringing an expected kick to highlights. Drops to pure black allow detail to peek out, critical during a late night run to plant surveillance equipment. It’s nothing elegant, but appealing.

Audio

Bumped up to Atmos (DTS-HD 5.1 on offer too), mixing adds some stray action around the soundstage. Heights take on limited work, mostly during the final act to send bullets/debris in multiple directions. Stadium and party crowds swell outward, typical stuff among modern action flicks.

Music slams the low-end hard, stretching range. Pedestrian LFE work elsewhere plays out when a goalpost falls and vehicles blow up. Gunshots add slight power, enough to feel a kick.

Extras

Humor continues to flow into the bonuses (split between the UHD and Blu-ray) with co-directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller joined by the starring duo, Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum. What follows are 22 deleted scenes running shy of 40-minutes, including a priceless alternate introduction.

Six featurettes reach close to an hour total and maintain the laugh quotient while doubling as informative behind-the-scenes extras. Joke-a-palooza is a six-minute collection of various gags could have fit into the finished product. Five different line-o-rama bonuses contain gold, particularly Patton Oswalt blowing up the odds to produce something out of nothing.

A Dramatic Interpretation of 22 Jump Street is a version of the movie with every joke cut out. It lasts all of 10-minutes. The full video for an in-movie recruitment gag is offered, and a parody commercial that went lightly viral with Tatum attempting an epic split brings an end to these wild bonuses.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 55 full resolution uncompressed 4K screen shots grabbed directly from the UHD: