22 Jump Street [A Fat Jesus Quick Hit]

'21 Jump Street' is a movie that I highly enjoyed. I went into thinking that it was gonna be a lackluster comedy, and came out of it praising it as the best comedy of 2012. Two years later they boys are back and bigger than ever. With the same writers, directors and core actors at their disposal, '22 Jump Street' is a rare sequel that is just as good, and at points, even better, than it's predecessor. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are a wonder to behold in these two films. 

"Oh, hey, look, there's Korean Jesus."
"It's Vietnamese Jesus now, you racist motherf***er."

'22 Jump Street' is set two years after the events of the first film and follows undercover police officers Morton Schmidt and Greg Jenko (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum). They thought they were going to a real college to tail drug deals, but instead are saddled with online courses. They eventually stumble across evidence that leads them to a drug deal going down at the docks. After a failed attempt at arresting the dealers, lead by a man known as Ghost (Peter Stormare), Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) reunites the duo with Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) at what is now, 22 Jump Street. The team is now assigned to go undercover at a college and find the supplier of a drug called "WHYPHY" that killed a student photographed buying it. Seemingly exactly like their first big case, Schmidt and Jenko head off to college to infiltrate the dealers and find the suppliers, before WHYPHY spreads.

"Someone get the man some water! He's black, he's Been through a lot!"

This is a movie that I wasn't sure about from the trailers. I think I'm like that with a lot of comedies these days though. It looked like it was going to be different film. It looked like it was going to be far too over the top, when it didn't need to be all that different from the first. Luckily for me, it wasn't over the top at all. Most of the time it was almost exactly the same. The actors knew it, the writers knew it, the directors knew it and they let YOU know it in the film. And you know what? It totally hooked me in. The charisma between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum is immense. Scenes involving Ice Cube are splendidly done. While the supporting cast, especially Jillian Bell, meshed with the main cast so well. The writing wasn't too lacking either. There were some jokes and gags that failed, but those are few and far between, as there's so much more that worked in this film. The recurring twins gag, the campus chase scene, the parents day, anything happening at the 22 Jump Street facility, Vietnamese Jesus, the closing credits, etc. There's so much to sink your teeth into even without mentioning the fantastic one-liners and dialogue. The comedy was great and the story, which is mostly the same is good as well. There's more development in new characters, while there's a few good scenes where they really got to let emotion shine through. It wasn't just all comedy, this movie had a ton of heart. The action wasn't lacking either as I highly enjoyed the chase scenes, explosions and combat throughout the film. It was never too serious and always done in a lighthearted way. I love that about this film. The fact it was just fun, funny and easy to watch the whole way through.

"He has one class in Human Sexuality, and now he's Harvey Milk."

If this was how all comedic sequels were done, there would be a lot less flops in the comedy side of cinema. This film and the upcoming 'Horrible Bosses 2' are movies I've been highly looking forward to. One film I already love, this one, and I'm hoping they can do another good follow-up with 'Horrible Bosses 2.' Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are having a helluva year between '22 Jump Street' and 'The LEGO Movie.' While I liked the latter more, '22 Jump Street' is still one of the best comedies this year. The comedy, action, acting and writing is all done well. Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube and the rest of the cast reprise their roles really well and that contributes a ton to the overall feel. This is a film that doesn't try to be more than it is, a sequel cashing in on the success of the original. The biggest difference is, '22 Jump Street' nails it completely.

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The LEGO Movie [A Fat Jesus Movie Review]

There's a reason that I waited up until February of 2014 to actually watch my first movie of the 2014 season. Sure a movie like "Lone Survivor" is doing well and I have an abnormal fascination with the "Paranormal Activity" series. But, those are movies that you can really wait on. The may be good, they may be bad, but they weren't something I was REALLY looking forward to. "The LEGO Movie" on the other hand is truly the first release of the year that I had any hype for. From the first teaser trailer I saw, I was hooked. Then the voice acting cast was revealed and eventually the trailers. I was on board completely and it even had the feel of "Wreck-It Ralph." While not quite on that level, "The LEGO Movie" is one that is perfect for kids, where as the adults will get mileage out of this as well.

"The LEGO Movie" follows the story of Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) and ordinary construction worker living a completely normal life. Years earlier, the [now] tyrant of Brickville, the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) defeated Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) to obtain a super-weapon called the "Kragle." Vitruvius warns Lord Business of  a prophecy where the "Special " will find the Piece of Resistance capable of stopping said Kragle. One day after work, Emmet comes across a woman, Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), who is looking for something at the construction site. Emmet falls down a hole and lands in front of the Piece of Resistance and upon touching it is shown visions and passes out. He wakes up in custody and begins to be interrogated by Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson), a henchman of Lord Business, and finds out the Piece of Resistance is attached to his back. As Emmet learns of Lord Business' plan to destroy the world, Wyldstyle busts in and rescues him to take him to Vitruvius. Vitruvius explains that he and Wyldstyle are Master Builders, able to build anything that they need without instructions and with great speed. He also explains that in Lord Business' rise to power he captured a great many Master Builders. Emmet must become The Special, aka everything he thinks he's not, to stop Lord Business. With the help of Batman (Will Arnett), an anime unicorn kitten, Uni-Kitty (Alison Brie), a 1980-something Space guy, Benny (Charlie Day) and a pirate set out for revenge, Metal-Beard (Nick Offerman), they just may be able to save the world.

Ever since "The LEGO Movie" hit theaters this past Friday all I've heard is a steady stream of overwhelming positivity towards the film. The few negative thoughts center around the idea that this is just a giant commercial for LEGOs or that it suffers because of a lacking plot or story-line. I mostly don't agree with these sentiments, because for me this is a movie in the same vein as one I mentioned before, "Wreck-It Ralph." A movie totally based and made around video games. Just like "The LEGO Movie" is based in a world made of LEGOs. I did want to buy or play video games after "Wreck-It Ralph." The point of the film wasn't to sell video games though. "The LEGO Movie" is gonna want to make kids go play with what the just saw, sure. But, I highly doubt that anyone truly thinks this is a "100-minute commercial" for LEGOs. Especially when such a great a main point of the film, is to breakout of that norm and learn to harness creativity. Sure things get a bit convoluted when they are forced to use the instructions at one point to move onward, but in the overall scheme of things, "The LEGO Movie" wants you to breakout of that shell. I like that message in this film and in this day and age. Also the story is pretty okay to me. Sure it doesn't break any new ground, but it's one that really does work in a movie like this. A character who is ordinary, finds out that if he can go against the grain, he can be great. You don't have to be the strongest or the smartest to make an impact in everything going on. I liked the writing by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the same team that brought us "21 Jump Street" in 2012, and look to wow us again with it's sequel later this year. "The LEGO Movie" is a pretty well written story and has that great blend of both humor for adults and for kids alike. 

The animation in this is also pretty great. An almost flawless blend of CGI and stop motion using the LEGOs we all know about. The worlds are not only vibrant, but familiar if you've grown up at any point with LEGOs around your house. Beyond that they're brought to life you used to in your imagination as a kid. I loved being able to see what I did as a kid come to life, so nostalgia was a big part of this film for me. I touched on this a bit in the previous paragraph, but the humor is a great point in this film. Some jokes fall flat, but there's never a moment were a joke couldn't be put into a situation. Almost like "Family Guy" in the style of which the jokes were used, despite you know the movie having a semblance of a plot. Kids will love the humor and the adults will get more than just a few laughs throughout the viewing as well. Finally, we'll get to the character and voice acting, cause I thought they were all pretty good too. Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman the rest of truly delivered performances fitting for each character. The voice cameos were fun as well as I want to give this a re-watch just to catch them all. While I love the voices, the characters were hit and miss. Emmet was great throughout, but I thought suffered from the fact he was very one dimensional, same could be said of a lot of these characters though. I liked Vitruvius as sort of the guide and teacher of the group, while Wyldstyle (she's a DJ right?) brought that over the top action into the mix. The supporting roles by Batman, Uni-Kitty, Benny and Metal Beard were fine as well as they all brought a distinct character into this diverse band of LEGOs saving the world. Lord Business was a good villain throughout and really captures the misinformed and crazed power hungry side of a bad guy well. While his main henchman, Bad Cop/Good Cop was a nice one. One that was not only was menacing, but that had some back story as well. All of this mentioned above is combined with a stellar soundtrack led by the song "Everything Is Awesome." Which you will know by the end of this film.

"The LEGO Movie" is one of those movies that's hard to hate. You could find faults in it all day, but I'd rather be the guy that lets my inner child take over when watching an animated film like this. This move looks great, the voice acting is done well and there's a bunch of humor (and emotion), all wrapped nicely in a fun little story. There's a major moment near the end that really did vault this from "only an okay" movie, to a great one in my eyes. Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you here. Even if you never played with LEGOs growing up and don't plan to start your collection now, "The LEGO Movie" is hard to pass up, as it's easily the best of 2014 so far.

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We're The Millers [A Fat Jesus Movie Review]

We're The Millers is one of those movies I discounted initially, based off the premise and casting of this film. While I loved Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston in Horrible Bosses, they were greatly aided by a near perfect cast of characters. Emma Roberts one (and only) role I highly enjoyed was in Scream 4. While Will Pouter is someone that is a virtual unknown. I held out hope though. After seeing trailers and snippets of bit parts played by Ed Helms and Nick Offerman, I thought I could enjoy this. This is a movie that I started to believe could be half as good as Horrible Bosses. Upon watching with friends, it was a hugely fun afternoon, and a very fun movie.

We're The Millers follows the story of David Clark (Jason Sudeikis) as he becomes a drug mule who will transfer marijuana across the Mexican border. David is a down on his luck, small time pot dealer. Always flirting with his next door neighbor Rose O'Reilly (Jennifer Aniston), a stripper. He also deals with the downstairs neighbor, kid Kenny Rossmore (Will Pouter), and the runaway girl, Casey Mathis (Emma Roberts), who parks herself across the street from his apartment. One day Kenny decides to save Casey from a group of thugs and David has to get involved. This leads to a beat down, allowing the thugs to steal all of David's things. The next day his boss, Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms), gives him the assignment mentioned earlier, to make up for the losses. David must travel to Mexico in a world class RV and bring it back filled with the drugs. David hatches an idea that will makes things easier on him. He recruits Rose, Kenny, Casey to form a family on a vacation to Mexico, to mask the drug movement. David also agrees to give each person a cut of the money he makes. Along the way, they become more than just four people out to make a buck. They start to become a family, even though none of them are remotely related.

We'll start with the bad here, because this is a pretty good comedy, that I think is a bit underrated. But, the bad is pretty bad, and I'll compare this at times to Horrible Bosses cause to me they're oddly alike. The story in this is very straightforward. Guy loses his drugs, is given an oddly specific task and then nothing quite goes right until delivery is made. The problem is there's a lot of unnecessary sincerity sprinkled throughout this. I never went into this wanting to have that feel good moment. That may sound a little weird, but I wanted it to be a raunchy comedy, that I could laugh at. Which I did. I can understand the bond growing between the people, but sometimes it was a bit too much. This brand of comedy didn't really mesh well with it. While I appreciate character development as much as the next movie watcher, this didn't feel like the movie where I needed to really know these people. Also there were a lot of scenes that just plain weren't needed or were too long. A lot of the scenes involving Nick Offerman, as much as I like him, and Katheryn Hahn, were just plain boring. While there were a couple of good moments involving the two, keeping them at the level Ed Helms had would've done this movie a lot of good. It felt long for a comedy because it was pretty long for a comedy. At almost two hours, you're really going hit or miss with all the gags, jokes, development, and anything else you wanna throw in. Combine all that with misplaced story (maybe even subplot) of love, trust and growing close with those around you. This comedy hits hard with the funny, but not with (some of) the sentiments they put in with it.

The good in this is pretty simple. It's funny. It's a comedy that does it job. Like I said above the story and writing is pretty rocky, but not when it comes to the bits and jokes. As with all comedies, and you know movies, humor and enjoyment are highly objective. This is one that got legit laughs out of me. The majority of the bits and gags were good, and it's littered with one-liners that get you out of nowhere, so to speak. The comedic timing and rhythm of everyone is great. Obviously Jason Sudeikis, and to a lesser extent Jennifer Aniston, have the whole comedy thing down. I've never thought of Emma Roberts as a girl with a funny bone, and I had no idea who Will Pouter heading into this. BUT they all meshed together so well. For people who have barely worked together before, the exception being Sudeikis and Aniston, they felt like they've all known each other for decades. The timing for jokes was impeccable. At points there's a lot of rapid fire jokes, so it warrants a re-watch (especially if gets an extended or unrated cut) to catch everything. The characters being portrayed well adds into all this. You get to see them as they are. Then they put on the false front, but they're still the ones shown to you struggling and just trying to make ends meet. It's like you're watching a character, playing another character, while being themselves. If that makes any sense to you. But to me it works so well in capturing the essence of everyone involved. Bottom line is, this is a comedy, you watch a comedy to laugh, it made me laugh, it did it's job perfectly.

I maybe should've left that last line there for my closing thoughts, but we'll see where I ramble with this. We're The Millers was a bit of a surprise to me, as you read in my first paragraph. I wasn't sold on the casting and plot, but the comedy looked halfway decent. Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts and Will Pouter are a great on-screen team. One of them in each scene is gonna make you laugh or even crack a smile. This isn't a movie that's gonna win the Oscar for Best Screenplay, or even get high ratings. This is a fun (and funny) movie, that you can get your friends together to watch on movie night, and not be disappointed.

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21 Jump Street [A Fat Jesus BluRay Review]

Let's start with the commentary track on this set as it's pretty damn awesome. You get the two directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller along with the two main stars in Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, all together for one of the first times watching the final product. You don't mind missing some of the funniest lines and parts cause Jonah Hill, who is very outspoken in this track, still refers to Emma Watson as Hermione and can't help but point out scenes with Ice Cube and when Rob Riggle grabs Brie Larson's boobs. Also there's funny behind the scenes stories from Channing and Jonah's scenes with Rob Riggle, Dave Franco and Ice Cube. Also there's an unnatural love for getting drunk during scenes, since it was filmed in Louisiana, and their love (and frankly my love too) of Korean Jesus. There's a unanimous decision between the four, that the "F*ck you science! *Walks off*" line is the best in the movie. Hard to argue. This track was a blast to listen too, and if you like this movie you'll love this commentary.

The deleted scenes ended up being more extended scenes or alternate scenes. There's a five minute extended one where Jake Johnson, the schools principal, just improvises with Channing and Jonah that had me in stitches. There's also a few more good ones involving Nick Offerman, Dave Franco and Chris Parnell. Gag-reel is hilarious as well as it gives a huge behind the scenes look at watch actually made the actors in his laugh. Let me tell you, a lot set these guys off and most of that same stuff set me off too.

There's a ton of featurettes on this set as well. We'll start with these three in "Back to School," "Brothers In Arms" and "Peter Pan on the Freeway." Back to School goes behind the scenes with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as they transform back into high-school kids after being assigned to 21 Jump Street. It's a neat watch as things have changed (and even in the writing) since the two were in school. Brothers in Arms is another behind the scenes featurette with Jonah and Channing. It shows the transformation into the cops that they portray in the movie. It's sort of a continuation of "Back to School" with more pointing the prop guns at each others crotches and firing to see if they were loaded. They had to shut down half of a highway to film the chase scene in this movie. Jonah comments on how that there's live traffic on the other side of where they're filming. He even gets (what turns out) an undesirable message (the first of it's kind) on the highway itself.

We're not done with featurettes either, there's still three more with "Cube-O-Rama," "Johnny Depp on Set" and "The Rob Riggle Show!" Cube-O-Rama may be the best on this set cause it Ice Cube yelling his lines from the movie and improvised lines too. Ice Cube is a riot in the movie and there's lines that were cut could've easily been put in. Also everyone is in awe of his birthmark near his eye (as said on the commentary track too) and are mesmerized by it. Now onto Johnny Depp on Set. There's a pretty big cameo by Depp, who was in the original series, that no one could stop asking about once the inception of 21 Jump Street started. The actors on set felt they could talk to Johnny while he was in his scene clothes (and Depp even went out and about without being recognized). But once he was out of them everyone suddenly got starstruck. Finally we have The Rob Riggle Show and this is amazing. Riggle is a hilarious guy and steals the movie behind Channing and Jonah. The whole cast agrees as again we get to hear about Riggle grabbing Brie Larson's boobs, making Jonah and Channing ruin so many scenes due to laughing and putting his own penis in his mouth.

This set really has it all. The great movie with an awesome commentary track. The deleted scenes that felt more like extended ones. Along with a side splitting gag reel. And there's six awesome featurettes that keep the behind the scenes knowledge flowing. There's a ton of extras on this set and if you liked 21 Jump Street like I did (my favorite comedy of 2012) you really need to get this set. Well worth your money. 

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