The running gag in 22 Jump Street (2014) is that it is going to be exactly like “the last time.”  It is a self-aware joke about it being a sequel to 21 Jump Street (2012) without the characters explicitly knowing they are in a movie.  In 22 Jump Street, there is plenty of double entendre since the plot between the two films are nearly identical, but it does not outright say what is happening behind the camera.  For a Catholic viewer, the only point of interest is the fact that the police force it features is headquartered in an abandoned, Vietnamese Catholic Church (which is also a cinematic callback of sorts).  It has the fanciful name of Resurrection of the Holy Spectacle, which is . . . um . . . something?  It actually is not, religiously speaking, and our “heroes’” boss, Captain Dickson (Ice Cube), says some ridiculous things about the image of Jesus, and that is all that needs to be said about these aspects.  Otherwise, I will be doing my usually fracking for spiritual lessons in this miasma of college stereotypes.

The last time we saw undercover cops Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill), they were busting a high school drug ring.  As we begin 22 Jump Street, they are no longer working the education system, but are as inept as ever.  Morton is considered the brains of the two, while Greg is the brawn, but together they manage to let their new target, a drug trafficker known as The Ghost (Peter Stormare), get away while they end up dangling, suspended together in mid-air at the Los Angeles dockyard.  Their ineptitude prompts a meeting with Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman), their superior officer on the regular police force.  Deputy Chief Hardy is not pleased, to say the least, but nonetheless, he sends Greg and Morton back to Captain Dickson.  After a number of the puns discussed in the introduction, Captain Dickson informs the pair that this time they are going to college.  At first, they are excited by the opportunity to be in a dorm room and mingle with people closer to their age.  Yet, their initial, rather obvious inquiries bring them zero leads in finding the mysterious drug known as “WHY-PHY.”  Seeking inspiration, since this is supposed to be “exactly like last time,” they visit Mr. Walters (Rob Riggle), the former high school gym teacher they arrested for distributing illicit substances in the previous film.  In showing him the one picture they have of a WHY-PHY transaction, Mr. Walters notices that the man in the image has a tattoo.  Interviewing a local tattoo artist about the ink points the way to a young man with a red mohawk, who Greg and Morton recognize as potentially belonging to Rooster (Jimmy Tatro), a football player they have already encountered.  Since this is Greg’s area of expertise, he gets him and Morton an invitation to the football fraternity’s party.  It is the beginning of a divide between Greg and Morton, particularly when Greg meets Zook Haythe (Wyatt Russell), the school’s starting quarterback.  Greg and Zook become fast friends, and Morton leaves the party alone.  Walking across campus, Morton encounters art student Maya Dickson (Amber Stevens), whom he had earlier met at a poetry slam.  They end up spending the night together, while Greg parties into the morning hours with Zook.  Their encounters are profitable for each, though in different ways.  More importantly, Greg learns that it is Zook who has the skin art they had been seeking.  As for Morton, when he and Maya awaken, they are confronted by the annoyed and creepy Mercedes (Jillian Bell), Maya’s roommate.  Mercedes had once shared a dorm room with a girl who had died from a suspected overdose of WHY-PHY, the incident which launched Greg and Morton’s investigation.  Soon, Greg and Morton drift further apart as Greg is accepted into the fraternity, and on the football team, while Morton must face an angry Captain Dickson, who happens to be Maya’s father.  The one time they do work together is productive, such as when they get into the late student’s quarters and discover that the drug is being moved through empty library books.  However, on the way to the stacks, Greg gets a phone call from Zook about the imminent football game.  Greg thus departs to play, leaving Morton alone to find that it is The Ghost who is responsible for bringing the drugs onto campus.  A series of frantic texts gets Greg to leave his game early, but another botched chase sequence results in Morton taking the blame while Greg stays at the school with Zook.  It is during this time apart that they see on the news that the school’s mental health counselor, Dr. Murphy (Marc Evan Jackson), has been taken into custody for the sale of WHY-PHY on campus.  Again, this is “just like last time” according to Deputy Chief Hardy, but the conclusion does not sit well with Greg and Morton.  Putting aside their differences, they travel to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico where they figure the hallucinogen can be given to college co-eds across the country.  Once there, they spot The Ghost, and track him to an upstairs bar.  This is when they find out that it is Mercedes behind it all, her being The Ghost’s daughter.  We conclude with one last action sequence, with Morton doing his best to save Greg’s life, something the latter had previously done in the last installment.  Mercedes is arrested, The Ghost dies in a helicopter explosion, and the end credits see Captain Dickson coming up with a number of other fanciful undercover assignments involving schools.

Speaking of schools, one of the hypothetical institutions seen in 22 Jump Street’s end credits is Sunday School.  As Hollywood tends to do, it has our two heroes (this time, Morton is replaced with Seth Rogen) dressed as priests, giving them white stoles for some reason.  Had they been dressed as protestant ministers, a viewer might have looked at them and wondered whether they were actually Christians.  Sometimes I am annoyed by the stereotype, but other times I appreciate the fact that my Faith so readily signals belief in God.  It is one of the more innocuous Catholic conventions, the more damaging being that our clergy are all pedophiles, and it is sad that this last one has been so persistent.  It also has nothing to do with the movie, though I am not sure where else to go with this analysis.  There is not a point at which it takes itself seriously enough to draw any lessons from it.  I could try to squeeze something out of the troubles in Greg and Morton’s friendship, but even that is treated comedically, being made to seem like they are actually dating each other instead of being “brothers-from-another-mother,” as the saying goes.  If there is anything to be taken from this nonsense, it is that relationships take work.  Just like erasing the negative perceptions of the Church, keeping someone in your good graces requires effort.  The use of the word “grace” is purposeful because the same logic applies to your interactions with God.  If you do not talk to Him and/or try to earnestly follow him, you might be the kind of people you see in a movie like this one.

That last statement about 22 Jump Street could be construed as a stereotype.  Like all generalizations, the small kernel of truth in them to which people cling to as a justification for believing them matters little in the face of the truth that stereotypes are terrible.  If you laugh a few times while watching this movie, does that make you a bad person?  No.  Should you see it at all?  Also, no.