Trailer Talk: '21 Jump Street'

Somebody in Hollywood didn’t get the memo that rebooted TV properties from the ’80s are a dicey proposition.

Just ask the folks who gave us “The A-Team,” the wannabe blockbuster that made us pity the fools who sank good money into it. Now, the creatively-impaired film industry is about to give us “21 Jump Street,” the film version of the TV show which gave Johnny Depp his first taste of fame.

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The new film, hitting theaters Spring 2012, stars a thinner Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as detectives working undercover in high school to sniff out a drug ring.

Depp will have a cameo in the film, a belated thank you for the property which launched his career. We don’t see Depp in the trailer, nor do we get many laughs from the two-plus minute tease.

Tatum is hardly the first actor who comes to mind when you think “action comedy,” although he showed some welcome self-awareness playing the stud Winona Ryder hooks up with in “The Dilemma.” Hill’s comic chops are fare more reliable, although some of his best work relies on the presence of uber-comedy producer Judd Apatow.

“21 Jump Street” still could click if the film shrewdly milks the fact that both detectives look a decade younger than their high school “peers.” For a movie with franchise written all over it, the first trailer feels a bit played out – already.

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