21 Jump Street is a perfect film for a lot of reasons, but one of the most helpful is its merciless skewering of action movie cliches. Diving through the air whilst firing two guns at the same time is shown to be an ineffectual way of winning a fight, running out of bullets happens frequently, and Channing Tatum's character is eternally disappointed that shooting gas tanks doesn't cause cars to explode. Of course, shooting a truck full of chickens during a car chase won't actually cause an explosion either, but it was a pretty good joke nonetheless. Yes, as much as it's got some logic behind it that the igniting spark of a bullet fired through a gas tank would cause petrol to ignite and turn a car into a cool-looking fireball, it's not how it works. In fact it's physically impossible for that to happen. The only times cars explode like they do in Michael Bay films is if they're, y'know, full of explosives. There's only ever a small amount of fuel in an engine at any given moment, and you'd need a bullet that could pierce an engine block besides which don't really exist. Bonus myth busted: cool guys may not look at explosions as they slowly stroll away from them, but if you do get a car to go up in flames? You better run unless you want third-degree burns and tinnitus.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
