with their feelings and care about the environment. These kids, Jenko discovers, are not of Schmidt’s tribe (read geeks) and are now considered to be the cool ones. Can Schmidt and Jenko handle the popularity and obscurity that have been thrust upon them while also bringing down the mysterious?   Adapted from a television show, 21 Jump Street the film possesses the hybrid nature that typifies recent comedies. Largely pertaining to the lighter side of crime-fighting, gunplay and explosions are cushioned between various diverse elements. Apart from the law enfarcement that channels that of the bumbling cops from Hill’s breakthrough film Superbad, also witnessed is the high school movie with all its colourful tropes. The protagonists’ contrasting natures make for the odd couple/ buddy film. The tripped out psychedelic scenes and not-so-subtle marijuana advocacy borrows from the stoner movie.   The theme of adapting with newfound identities is commendable, but could have been explored with more sincerity. As their black, angry, motherf—ker-spewing captain Dickson (Ice Cube) advises, the film cleverly embraces the stereotype while also playing around with conventions like the way explosions are expected to bloom between the flying bullets and burning rubber of cars in hot pursuit. The humour is derived from such situations are more effective than the sparse occasion when you are caught off guard, laughing for all the wrong reasons, which the film chiefly banks upon.   The acting and deliveries, from our heroes and the whacky side characters, is solid and contributes to the hahas. Hill, who proved himself with Moneyball, channels his inner Woody Allen while Tatum displays more depth as usual as an outdated individual who must find meaning among those whom he spitefully scorned. The Office’s Ellie Kemper, playing Jenko’s chemistry teacher, could very well be playing herself, but that’s just perfect. And it’s good to see Rob Riggle, as the PE teacher, playing more than the taunting weirdo.   Not unbearably unfunny, the silly 21 Jump Street isn’t an ingeniously structured laugh riot but a just-about effective one.