“That’s the story of Jackass there! Pissing in the wind!”
Sure, “Jack Ass” May have stumbled with the first film which was just so many layers of pure awful.
But with the sequel, Johnny Knoxville and the guys sort of learned their lesson in spite of its success and turned their antics in to performance art of a sorts. They’ve taken the art of acting like morons and turned it in to a form or pre-orchestrated and carefully planned nihilism that is both very funny and always has something of a point to make.
Take for example the sheer ludicrousness of Knoxville dressed as an old man making out with his under aged (an obviously aged actress pretending to be a teen) grand daughter and no one at all reacting to the display of the two kissing and nearly dropping down to the floor humping. It’s insane how by now Knoxville has figured out that he’s never going to be anything but the man behind “Jackass” so he’s taken that and made it in to a form of art where it’s often a new kind of silent film.
He’s Chaplin if Chaplin did shat himself and dropped his friends in to eleven foot pits of fake snakes. Knoxville takes the pranks and stunts and transforms them in to works of art that his friends all have to walk through or travail through to make the audience laugh. And on the side he allows his friends like Bam to put on their own shows that digress but at least add variety for fans who prefer Bam Margera’s bashing on his dad over Knoxville’s insanity. “Jackass 3” is after my own heart from the very introduction with the original jackasses Beavis and Butthead providing audiences with the concept of 3D and films viewed in 3 dimensions.
They set the stage for the onslaught of hilarity that will have audiences wondering why they put so much effort in to a shit joke and why a joke about pulling teeth is so damn elaborate. Knoxville and co. seem to adhere to the notable “Serenity” adage that If you can’t do something smart, do something right. And Knoxville simply does it right. He takes idiocy and turns it in to something you have to be intelligent and coordinated to involve yourself in, or else you’re just not going to make anyone laugh. As was evident with the first film, he just didn’t make me laugh. But once he took it to a whole other level of intricate planning and scheming, “Jackass 2” left me floored with laughter, while “Jackass 3” ups the ante with even more stunts that are intricately disgusting and just surreal. Add the inclusion of Spike Jonze to the mix, and it’s a pedigree of pure chaos that you just can’t help but embrace.
“Jackass 3” suffers from being a much too bloated series of jokes that can sometimes go on for much too long. Knoxville seems to want to give all of his friends something to do and provide them with their own spotlight, and for that the film suffers considerably from pacing issues. The movie is much too long for what the joke requires, and when a segment has been delivered, Knoxville focuses way too long on the reaction of a certain member of his cast to where you’re wondering when he’ll ever move on to something new. Clipping ten minutes off of the run time would have sufficiently made “Jackass 3” much leaner in and easier to watch, in the end.
The third film in the “Jackass” film series suffers from serious pacing issues and comedy skits that never know when to quit, however it is a hilarious and raucous third film and follow-up to the supreme “Jackass” movie that was “Jackass 2.” With even more intricate pranks and ridiculous stunts that border on the purely absurd, Knoxville and co. can keep this up and continue with the laughs as far as I’m concerned.