Jackass Forever releases in theaters on Feb. 4.
There’s more vomit than you’d expect in Jackass Forever, an early shoo-in for the year’s most wistful and nostalgic comedy. The boys are back for one final plunge on the rollercoaster, with more stunts gone horribly wrong and more pranks gone terribly right, in what feels both like an all-too-infrequent tradition, and one that needs to mercifully come to an end (if only for the safety of its cast). It’s a film that, much like the others in the series, will have you howling with the sort of unrestrained laughter usually reserved for dear friends behind closed doors. That’s what it is, in a way. A reunion with old pals — emphasis on the “old” — where you’re all wiser, but you look back fondly on the dumbest things you’ve ever said or done. It’s a blast, at times literally. A last hurrah in which the Jackass crew has the first and last laugh, as they always have, and as usual, you’re invited to the party.
The MTV show — a hybrid of extreme sports, home video aesthetic, and punk rock sensibility — debuted back in 2000, and since this is now movie number four (or number nine, if you count Bad Grandpa and the various extended compilations), the concept needs little introduction. You’re either along for the ride, or you’re sorely missing out. This time, the anticipation before each ill-advised escapade lasts even longer, as do the reaction shots of shock and uproarious cackling in the aftermath. Everyone is visibly older and more fragile. It all hurts so much more, and goes wrong so much more easily. The payoff is that much higher.
Jackass has always been silly, but it’s the kind of loving, self-aware stupidity where everyone is in on the joke — except for the times they aren’t (Danger Ehren is usually the target, but everyone, including director Jeff Tremaine, gets their comeuppance in the end). This time, they’ve roped in a handful of newcomers too, giving Jackass Forever the appearance of a modern “legacy sequel” where the old guard passes the baton. One of the new additions is named Poopies. Another is Rachel, the first woman Jackass. Jasper is the first Black guy on the crew, and the new generation is rounded out by Zach, a big dude who’s happy to be there. He may seem like the new Preston Lacy at first but there’s plenty of Preston too, and all the newbies have distinct personalities of their own. They fit right in, and feel like they’ve always been a part of the team. The film’s status as a typical decades-later sequel is cemented by the fact that a number of pranks and stunts are newer versions of things we’ve seen before, but they’re far from empty callbacks. The nostalgia, in revisiting these old ideas, is all about going the extra mile to nail the ones that didn’t quite work the first time, and about upping the ante quite severely for the ones that did. For the fresh faces, it’s a chance to mangle their bodies alongside people they grew up watching. For the original Jackasses, it’s a trip down memory lane, and an opportunity to do things right this time. It’s lost youth recaptured in a bottle and thrown down a junkyard hill.
Of course, doing this “right” when everyone is around 50 — a fact that hits like a brick the first time it’s mentioned — means bloodier skulls and longer hospital stays. While the film doesn’t linger on this fallout for any longer than usual, the thought is always there, looming silently in the background. Johnny Knoxville’s hair goes completely gray over the course of the production (either that, or he stops dyeing it, and embraces the march of time). One of the highly publicized stunts involves Knoxville being shot out of a cannon yet again, only this time, he’s draped in the wings of Icarus. Re-creating another segment even gave him brain damage. He knows he’s flying too close to the sun. They all do — Steve-O, Wee Man, Pontius, England, all of them — and they know it’s time to lay down the skull and cross-crutch logo. But it’s also incredibly human for them to want one last shot at glory.
Jackass has a history now, and that history has weight, making it one of the rare franchises you’d wish would go on forever, but the limits of the human body make you wish, even harder, that it would stop right this second. It’s difficult to make viewers wrestle with their nostalgia while they’re crying with laughter and wincing from second-hand agony, but Jackass Forever succeeds at this, even if it doesn’t really mean to.
The series’ history is also a key part of the legacy of cinema, and the crew claims its place in that story without apology. In addition to being a direct descendant of silent stunt comedy, à la Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Jackass has always loved movies, and has always crafted its enormous sequences with various references in mind. This time, that love comes rushing to the fore in the opening scene, which not only pays ridiculous homage to Japanese Kaiju cinema — their most audaciously juvenile hybrid of lowbrow humor and highbrow production value yet — but also functions as a greatest-hits reel for their own stunts throughout the years, hinting at familiar images in newer and bigger permutations, and setting the stage for a trip back in time.
The homages continue throughout. There’s a wheeze-inducing prank that remixes The Silence of the Lambs, and makes even one of its most seasoned targets yell “WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON?” There’s a painful sketch based on Rocky. There’s an equally painful tap-dance number that harkens back to Hollywood’s Golden Age. There’s an astonishingly silly sequence ripped straight from Apocalypse Now, and they even recreate one of the most memorable and disturbing images from The Shining, in what might be their most dangerous animal prank to date (one that actually requires intervention). It’s not too much of a stretch to say that Jackass, as a whole, deserves to be mentioned alongside any of these classics — it’s even been programmed at the Museum of the Moving Image — and the fourth film is no exception. Few works have so easily captured masochistic glee in its most unfiltered form, or boys-will-be-boys chaos at its purest and most well-meaning. Fewer have a camaraderie that feels so genuinely inviting; even the celebrity guests feel like they’re part of the family.
There’s still no fourth wall between us and the Jackass crew, no real artifice that separates the stars from the audience. Their bodies, which are always on full display, have never been those of supermodels or strictly regimented Hollywood hunks. They’re flawed, average, and distinctly shaped. They bleed, and s**t and piss, and there’s never any shame involved. At this point, the fellas are even comfortable grabbing each other’s genitals and moving them into position for a better shot (interpret “shot” as you will). There’s a sweetness and intimacy that clashes wildly with the violence on display, making it all permissible, and even welcoming. Twenty-something years on, there’s no doubt that even the worst time is good natured, which is why ad-libs like “Is Butterbean okay?” from Jackass: The Movie — mumbled by a concussed Knoxville after he’s been knocked out by the famous boxer — land with such delightful and hysterical precision. The new film has a couple of lines just like it. One even comes courtesy of Lance, the easily nauseated cameraman, whose visceral reactions while filming help shatter the façade even further.
There isn’t a dull moment to be found in Jackass Forever. It’s hard to say whether its individual stunts will have the same staying power as anything in its predecessors (in part, because it retreads so much familiar ground), but it’s the most well-oiled movie in the series, moving smoothly from one segment to the next with a perfect balance of pain and hilarity, with just enough recovery time in between. It’s funny in a cathartic way too, because watching it in a theater — if you’re able to do so safely — feels like returning to something so simple and effective that you wonder why more people haven’t perfected the formula. And then it hits you: there’s no formula at all. Jackass Forever isn’t something you can engineer in a boardroom. It’s the kind of film that could only have been made by people who have been friends for decades, and who are so comfortable around one another that they’re willing to trust each other with their lives for their own deranged amusement, and ours.
Jackass is dead. Long live Jackass.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/HM1cvmEhw
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