22 Grump Street.

I'm too old for this shit.

'22 Jump Street' marks the point at which me and big screen comedy part company. I mean really, I'm a tolerant guy but you've got to know when you're beaten. I can't even think of the last time I saw an American comedy that was any good - and by 'any good' I mean provides at least a couple of laughs. It's not like I'm reaching for the moon or anything.

I gave this one a go because it's top of the box office charts and I've heard reliable people saying the first one is hilarious.  I shouldn't have bothered.  I didn't laugh once, got a headache from being so annoyed by it and left feeling that I had nothing in common with my fellow man.

Here's a spoiler for you. This is Ice Cube's scary stare face:

I will tell you now that Ice Cube's scary stare face is the funniest thing in the film. I'm not kidding. He plays the chief of police who finds out that one of his officers may have slept with his daughter. He raises his eyebrow and stares. This generated more laughs than anything else in the film. This is the level we're operating on. It makes you long for the nuance and subtlety of a Police Academy film. It makes you reassess Adam Sandler as the obvious heir to Woody Allen. It's that bad.

Look, I don't mind that it's a stupid 'buddy cops get sent back to college' movie. True, that shit was tired even in the 80s and this is exactly the sort of thing you would have found left on the shelves of Blockbuster just before closing time - but - that's fine.

I don't mind that it's the sequel to the remake of a forgotten (and largely unseen in the UK) TV series that wasn't any good in the first place. I don't mind that it looks like TV, is directed like TV, edited like TV and is as disposable as TV.

I don't mind that the two stars (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) have no chemistry together. I don't find Jonah Hill funny at all, just a little creepy. A fine actor yes (I loved him in The Wolf Of Wall St) but not a comedian. Channing Tatum is just weird looking, like a chipmunk on steroids and has no sense of comic timing. And it should be all about timing.Their scenes together just come across as drama workshop self indulgence. Rambling on and shouting at each other is not the same as improv. They don't spark off each other and I didn't warm to them. They are not a great duo. I thought they just came across as fake, unfunny and  unlikeable.

I do mind how offensive it all is. By this I don't mean offensive jokes. It's actually surprisingly light on gross-out gags. It's not out to break taboos or hit you with intentional jaw dropping moments. But it is appallingly conservative and predictable in who it targets. Gays are funny (because they're gay), black people are funny (because they pull faces and lose their temper in posh restaurants). Hitting women is funny (especially if you hit them repeatedly for exaggerated effect). Drugs are funny (because everyone is doing them). Fraternity house initiations are funny (bullying rites always are). You know, the usual stuff. That doesn't offend me as such but there's a really unpleasant insincerity and deceitfulness to it all. It's played as 'bromance' and the film has a fairly obvious subtext about two men coming to terms with their homosexuality but crams in as many 'faggot' jokes as it can. The real message of the movie seems to be - conform to white, male, straight  supremacy because being a bigoted, homophobic, misogynist, racist, frat boy asshole is the norm and really cool. 

But worse than any of that, what I really, really hated was the ending. It's an oh so funny 'look how self aware we are' ending in which they rub your face in the fact that this is a piece of shit franchise that will run and run and run. Just before the end credits we are trapped in an endless hall of mirrors of possible Jump Street sequels. It's as if the filmmakers are saying: this is shit, we know it's shit, you know it's shit, but you want  to watch this shit, so we'll keep on making this shit forever and ever and ever. It's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. The Michael Bay of comedy films. The apocalypse.