Dallas Fisher

The third time’s the charm, or at least better than the second.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a franchise have two legacy sequels so close to one another. Typically you see a hit movie released and they let it breathe for 30 years and then a subpar sequel comes along that can only be described as diminishing returns. This example saw the first be followed seventeen years later with, for a lack of better words, a horrible movie and now we have a second, second chance. I’ll give them props for this method because it mainly worked. Getting rid of a dozen unnecessary cameos certainly helped that success over the previous installment.

I’ll shut up about the second movie now and focus on what 3 has to offer. Mainly, it’s funny! It absolutely brings back the hits and not in an annoying way. You’ve got Farva hitting the same beats but he still has the juice to keep it on tempo. Kevin Heffernan took this role to feel like grown up Bobby Hill and I cannot believe they both work.  I loved the idea of making this a wedding movie as it elevates the similar jokes to a different audience in the film and seeing the new family react to those jokes was a nice change of pace. My favorite part of all of this is the group finding a way for Brian Cox to return and slap everyone into place even while retired. He had me laughing harder than I have all year, almost. The Canada riffs were still on point and even though it’s not the most creative thing, adults being childish is still hilarious.

The biggest part of this movie that surprisingly worked for me was seeing the characters grow up in real time. While the childish and foolish acts are still prevalent, the story brings new light to the humanity of everyone. It’s possible that since I’m getting married in real life soon, that the addition of that wedding plot really helped carry this along. Plus, the addition of Hannah Simone really made the odd couple stuff work tremendously, I’m not sure there was a better casting choice for her role. Watching these old timers push back on the future while learning new things kept me engaged just enough. 

Now to the things that don’t work. First, it barely looks like a movie. It’s polished to a degree that it looks like a wedding videographer shot it. The new cast, mainly Chance Crawford from The Boys, are unbearable. I feel bad for him because I thought he was a de-aged Sean William Scott for the first hour of the movie. I know you need something for the troopers to do outside of trying to support or stop the marriage, but the side plot with the crime was unnecessarily confusing, sticky, and far-fetched. I get this is an over the top cop comedy but there’s a limit, and they reached it.

28 Jump Street + The Big Sick is a culture I never thought I would see come together but I’m sort of glad I did. This whole cast is still a bunch of cool guys, and girl, and I understand why they needed to tell this story right meow. If you liked the shenanigans of the first film and need to see these characters do similar things for ninety minutes, give it a run. If not, don’t worry about pulling over.

5.5/10