Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Johnny Knoxville
Steve-O
Ryan Dunn
Bam Margera
Wee Man
Preston Lacy
Chris Pontius
Dave England
Tony Hawk
Rake Yohn
Manny Puig
Sean William Scott
Spike Jonze
and many others...
Directed By:
Jeff Tremaine
and many others...
Directed By:
Jeff Tremaine
The whole concept of Jackass is stupid, vulgar, disgusting, juvenile and dangerous for the very fabric of society in general. But it's also pretty fucking funny. I'm not completely clear on why I like that show/movie/concept at the first place, but I really do. In recent years, I don't think anything has made me laugh harder than Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O dreading a stunt and then hurting themselves. The disgusting skits are hit or miss for me, but the good ones are probably the ones I laughed the hardest (click at your own risk). I'm growing older and a little more ashamed to like Jackass every year. But they are a guilty pleasure of mine, so when my friend Eddie Herrera came over with a copy of the latest achievements of the nefarious bands of daredevils, I popped it in and gave it an hour an a half of my time.
Yeah, it was worth it. I did not watch it in 3D, but I don't think I missed much except maybe for a couple of flying dildos and Rip Taylor's party paper. There is something typically male about loving Jackass, I think. See, we all hung around friends and been idiots, to a point of endangering our health. But we were fourteen years old. Those guys are thirty-five, still going at it and making a lot of money from those stunts. They are a symbol of eternal youth, of a taste for danger, for living your life at a hundred miles per hour. Watching Jackass reminds me that even if I'm growing older and wiser, I didn't retire my mind yet, into the comfortable land of the well-thinking. There, I said it. Watching the adventures of Johnny Knoxville's crew is a thinking person's sport. You have to side step over your own judgment in order to watch it, and you have to dig even deeper in order to like it.
Jackass 3D contained some templated stunt that you've seen in their previous movies, involving a different vehicle or a different background. Some of them don't look very fresh. But it would be to sell Johnny Knoxville (and Preston Lacy, who wrote most of the sketches) to think they couldn't come up with some scorching new ideas. And most of the time those ideas seem to involve Steve-O, the most reckless and self-destructive of the group. He is the best "dreader" of the group. You can read the fear in his body language, and yet he engages in the most break-neck stunts of them all. Bam Margera also has surprising moments. I usually hate his part, because they involve him hurting somebody and wimping out from the pain himself. His skit The Rocky, despite falling in his comfort zone, had a very good slapstick appeal and must have been something to see in 3D. Oh and, the guys prank him again with snakes (his most visceral fear). They trap him in a pit with a hundred live snakes (and a hundred fake ones), which exposes his spoiler crybaby character. Awesome.
Bottom line, I don't think there's anything wrong with watching Jackass. They are not sniffing coke from a stripper's butt, they are not pointing guns at anybody and rapping about killing their loved ones and they sure are not promoting self-loathing, elitism or any form of racial or social segregation. They are a tightly knit group of friendly, goofy looking dudes, having fun and performing impossible stunts for your entertainment. They even have disabled person in their crew, who performs some of the craziest, most dangerous stunts. To me, they are an extremely modern slapstick unit that uses the most out of space, sound and pure boldness to pry a small away from your uptight self. They might not be exactly heirs to Charlie Chaplin, but watch some Buster Keaton movies for a little while. You will find some eerie similarities. The crew from Jackass just adapted it to reality T.V and the 21st century. Jackass 3D isn't their greatest movie, but it still got a few heart-attack laughter from me.
SCORE: 79%