During high school, Schmidt was a geek who was unpopular, while Jenko was popular, but missed the prom night because he was punished for having low grades. Seven years later, they are both cops, and they both get a chance to go back to high school undercover to find who is selling a new drug, HFS, to teenagers. Schmidt falls in love with Molly and even holds a party at his parents' house, thus gaining popularity. Schmidt and Jenko discover Eric is selling drugs, and by investigating they find out his boss is physical education teacher Walters, so they arrest them during prom night.
Before their success with writing "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and "The Lego Movie", Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directed this untypical comedy for the wide audience, a sort of spoof film adaptation of the serious crime TV series "21 Jump Street" from the 80s, and thus it comes as no surprise that in one scene the Deputy Chief ironically gives a wink to the viewers when he says: "We're reviving a canceled undercover police program from the '80s and revamping it for modern times. You see the guys in charge of this stuff lack creativity and are completely out of ideas, so all they do now is recycle shit". The movie works almost exclusively thanks to the comedy charm of comedian Jonah Hill, though his co-star Chaning Tatum also has his moments. The screenplay has an interesting twist—'geek' Schmidt was unpopular in high school, but now, as an undercover student, he finds times have changed and the new high school kids respect his intellect, giving him chance to finally become popular, whereas Jenko was considered dumb, but now hangs out with 'geeks' to learn something from them.
Unfortunately, this is where the script stops and the rest is basically just routine, with several lame, forced or contrived situations on autopilot. A subplot where the teacher finds Jenko attractive, but is afraid to make any moves since she thinks he is still a minor, was dropped without the writers doing anything with it. The finale is typical "give up" conclusion that relies only on shouting and hysterics, without any further thought. However, one joke is outstanding and pure comedy gold: around 34 minutes into the film, Schmidt and Jenko have to take drugs from a dealer as to not blow their cover, but as they walk back through the school hall, they stumble upon the physical teacher Walters and try as hard as they can to stay "serious" while he talks, but they start uncontrollably giggling and experiencing hallucinations, such as Walters saying "So, you're Doug? You're Doug? You're Doug?" again and again; eyebrows on Walter's face going down to his lip to form a moustache; or Walter's head looking like an ice cream, while Schmidt sticks his tongue out, attempting to lick it. This goes even further, when Jenko is hyperactive afterwards and ostensibly writes a difficult equation on the school board, only for the camera to reveal he just wrote the same number "4" a thousand times. This is indeed a howlingly funny sequence, and is a highlight of the movie that is never able to repeat it on this level.
Grade:++
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