Jackass Forever
by George Wolf
Jackass.
Forever.
How does that hit you? Like a promise, or a threat?
Your answer is really all you’ll need to decide whether this sixth big screen installment of the Jackass franchise is for you.
After opening with a fairly inspired monster movie spoof that features a penis, Johnny Knoxville, his crew (Steve-O, Wee Man, Chris, Jeff, etc.) and celebrity guests (Machine Gun Kelly, Eric Andre, Tony Hawk) settle into what they do best: a parade of pranks, stunts, and hidden camera gags that also frequently involve the male nether regions and/or bodily fluids from both man and beast.
And oh, yes, some of their antics go straight to the funny bone.
One of the best, entitled Silence of the Lambs, throws some dudes into a pitch dark room with a venomous snake while giving us the Buffalo-Bill-with-heat-vision-goggle-eye view of how they react.
Hey is that a naked guy tucking his sack back? Maybe.
Other segments, like Knoxville adopting his Bad Grandpa makeup to check out a big sale on furniture, seem to wrap up just when you want them to amp up. The hits and the misses keep coming, equally likely to leave you laughing, wincing, or checking your watch.
But you can’t deny the bonds of friendship are still strong among these idiots, and after twenty-some odd years of insanity, a distinct whiff of sentimentality is in the air.
Or maybe that’s the dump someone just took in a store showroom. Hard to tell.
