This Week at the Movies

This week’s cinematic selections arrive courtesy of two sets of brothers and another collaborative duo that have made the transition from animation to live action filmmaking.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who previously helmed the animated picture “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” make their live action debut with “21 Jump Street,” an action comedy based on the 1980s television show of the same name.

But while the program, which paved the way for a young Johnny Depp, was a teen cop thriller that often focused on social issues, this new version is a buddy action comedy.

The film opens during the high school days of Schmidt (Jonah Hill), who is intelligent but considered a nerd, and Jenko, a popular football player and a doofus. The two become enemies during a scene in which Schmidt is humiliated.

Six years later, the young men bump into one another on their first day of enrollment in police academy. Naturally, they will be partnered together.

After colossally blowing a drug bust, Schmidt and Jenko are shipped off to the titular address, where foul tempered Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) gives them their new assignment: infiltrate a high school drug ring that is peddling a dangerous drug that has taken the life of a student.

One of the film’s best running jokes is Schmidt and Jenko’s surprise at how the high school landscape has changed in the six years since they graduated.

Schmidt falls in with a group of popular kids, one of whom is the school’s top pusher, while Jenko befriends the science lab crowd.

Much of the film’s running time is dedicated to poking fun at the clichés of teen and cop movies before ending with the type of shootout that it appears to be lampooning.

But despite a run-of-the-mill finale, “21 Jump Street” is a pleasure to watch, mostly due to the teamwork between Hill and Tatum, who shows surprising comedic talent.

In recent years, Hollywood comedies have consistently become louder and cruder, but not necessarily funnier. “21 Jump Street” bucks that trend. It’s a crowd pleaser – and I mean that as a compliment.

Mark and Jay Duplass’s “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is also a buddy movie, of sorts.

In this case, the duo is a pair of estranged brothers – Jeff (Jason Segel), a slacker who dwells in his mother’s basement and looks for the answers to life’s questions through M. Night Shyamalan movies, and Pat (Ed Helms), a moderately successful businessman who is having marital problems.

The movie also includes a subplot in which the boys’ mother (Susan Sarandon) is receiving emails from a secret admirer from work.

The picture is short in length, small in focus and laid back in tone, but these attributes are not shortcomings.

The Duplass brothers, who shot 2010’s “Cyrus,” have graduated from the “mumblecore” film scene where they got their start, but still incorporate the low-key performances and visual style of that movement.

Elements of “Jeff” may be slight, but it’s still a charmer.

The week’s top movie is also from a pair of brothers - Belgium’s Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne – who use simple camera set-ups and naturalistic performances to tell their stories.

The Dardennes have previously won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palm d’Or twice and their latest, “The Kid with a Bike,” took home the Grand Jury Prize last May.

I’ll get this out of the way first: “Kid” is a solid film but, for me, it does not rank with the Dardennes’ best - “L’Enfant” and “The Son.”

The picture opens as Cyril (newcomer Thomas Doret) searches for his father after having been left with no forwarding address at a state-run youth home.

During one of his many attempts to flee, he literally bumps into hairdresser Samantha (Cecile De France), who becomes a partner in his quest and a surrogate mother.

The Dardennes’ films typically focus on the broken hearts and weathered souls of their downtrodden characters and “Kid” is no different in that respect.

But a new theme explored by the brothers in their latest is that of kindness.

Samantha’s decision to accompany Cyril, who frequently finds himself in trouble, is never fully explained, but rather attributed to the selflessness of a good-hearted person.

The film becomes increasingly tense as Cyril is saved from a beating by a ruthless teenage drug dealer, who then decides to call in a favor from the young boy.

Much like the Dardennes’ previous efforts, “Kid” tells the story of a character living on the margins of society, but it has a sweetness not previously seen in the brother’s work. One might argue it’s a minor addition to their oeuvre, but it is compelling all the same.

"21 Jump Street" is playing at Douglaston's Movie World, while "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" is screening at Kew Gardens Cinemas and "The Kid with a Bike" is playing at Manhattan's IFC Center.