Jackass: The Movie ---- ** (out of 5) (2002)
Cast: Johnny Knoxville, Steve O, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius
Director(s): Jeff Tremaine
Screenwriter(s): Are you kidding me?
Released on: October 25, 2002
Reviewed on: June 21, 2003
Rated: R - for dangerous, sometimes extremely crude stunts, language and nudity
In case you're interested at all, I have in fact seen the MTV television series Jackass. I wouldn't call myself a fan. It's mostly just guilty pleasure for me to watch at night. What better way to end your evening than with a few laughs at someone else's own stupidity and misfortune? The movie had no purpose at all of being released. If you watch the making of the movie in the DVD special features section, they admit that the only reason the movie was produced was so they could show what uncensored Jackass was like. It's just like watching the TV show except for the obvious lack of bleeps, brains, and that it's a movie so it's been stretched out to an hour and a half.
The film opens with Johnny Knoxville and his crew of jackasses rolling across a bridge in a shopping cart. The camerawork, special effects, and slow motion are nice, but that's just there to fool us into thinking that the rest of the film will be of the exact same quality. Not bloody likely! Right after the introduction, be prepared to watch clip after clip after clip with absolutely no plot, no story, and no common sense whatsoever. The title shouldn't be JACKASS: THE MOVIE. It should have just remained JACKASS so we'll know ahead of time that it contains none of the previously mentioned factors.
JACKASS: THE MOVIE will leave you with very mixed feelings. There are two types of stunts. The ones that are funny or somewhat funny (even the somewhat funny ones can be enough to satisfy us) and then there's the gross-out stunts. Since there is an equal amount of each, it's hard to dislike JACKASS and yet there's so much about it that you should dislike. I mean, who wants to watch Dave England take a dump in a hardware store toilet or Steve-O vomit after snorting a line of spicy wasabi into his nose? Some of the cameramen are so disgusted at the stunts being performed that they are actually seen vomiting. This is, of course, filmed by the other cameraman so we'll have our share of partially-digested food and bile to look at. I'm getting nauseous just recollecting on some of those scenes.
All in all, JACKASS will make you laugh and it will make you cringe. Make sure to remove your brain from your skull before watching it though. Despite the warning and the reminder given after the end credits, I cannot emphasize more how idiotic you will feel after re-enacting any one of the stunts shown. If you're thinking about tightrope walking over a pit of alligators with meat dangling out of your underwear, shoving a toy car up your ass, or eating a snow cone that you or someone else urinated on, I suggest you watch this movie first to see how these guys reacted when performing these stunts. Most of them got extremely lucky and managed to elude possible death or severe injury, but I wouldn't take chances by having these stunts done again. I admit there were hilarious moments like the golf course airhorn, the rent-a-car smash up derby, and the fireworks wakeup. But it is no doubt all extremely dangerous and shouldn't be performed ever again. Have fun guffawing at these guys, but be sure to pity them at the same time for the embarrassment they'll go through 15 to 20 years from now when they're forced to admit they participated in JACKASS: THE MOVIE.
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