3.5 stars out of 5
It’s not that I was opposed to Jackass; I just never tuned in. I certainly noticed the show’s influence on my young friend [TRIGGER WARNING: obscure name-dropping], then-aspiring filmmaker Van Neistat. I dug the Minutemen song they used as theme music. Names seeped into my awareness: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Wee Man, Bam… Margerine? (Less sure about that one.) At some point I saw one of the movies: 2, or maybe 3. And I laughed a lot. So, new movie, why not? It’s been a hard couple of years.
I laughed a lot. The hardest I laughed at anything in a while. I guess I’ve always enjoyed cartoon violence, Three Stooges violence, and this is, you know, real. But they laugh afterwards so that makes it OK I think. There is something very satisfying about this for me, and that’s between me and my analyst.
There’s also something pleasing about the lasting friendships on display, the aging warriors suiting up for one last battle. Not that there’s any sentimentality in this flick, but it’s a subtext. Also telling is the inclusion of newer, younger jackasses who can take a little more beating, and the inclusion of… inclusion. A woman. A black guy. Jackass is woke.
Prominent people pay their respects. Co-creator Spike Jonze drops by. (These weren’t just bros kicking each other in the dicks; these were SPIKE JONZE-approved bros kicking each other in the dicks.) Eric Andre, whose own career owes a serious debt to the Jackass universe, and whose meh-movie Bad Trip shows that this stuff isn’t easy to pull off on the big screen, is in the house. Machine Gun Kelly is here for the young people.
Oh, about that dick-kicking: Whatever homoerotic issues these dudes were dealing with two decades ago, they still haven’t remotely sorted out. So there is a ton, I dare say too much, penis- and testicle-related stunts. And doodie. It’s in for a penny, in for a pound of shit with these guys.
Still, I laughed a lot. Many very, very funny bits, and a handful of really cleverly conceived ones. And yeah, totally stupid bits too. Penny, pound. Knoxville says they’re done but I haven’t noticed any real successful outside projects in the past so, see you guys in 2030.
Jack Silbert, curator