Reviews & Previews - Jackass Number 2

Posted on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 06:00 PM

Jackass Number Two

By: S. Tran

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Steve O
Directed By: Jeff Tremaine
Running Time: 95 minutes
Rated: Rated R for extremely crude and dangerous stunts throughout, sexual content, nudity and language.

Dare To Be Stupid

If The Jackass guys are back in this second big screen installment of their successful MTV show. As with the first movie we are again treated to Johnny Knoxville and his group of friends engaging in painful, weird and sometimes plain disgusting stunts and filming them for our enjoyment. Let me save you some time. If seeing someone get hit in the groin never makes you laugh or if you didn?t like the MTV show or the first Jackass film skip this review and this movie. If you liked everything I stated previously then you will have a great time.

To call this a movie is stretching the definition as there is no plot to speak of and no production values at all. I sometimes wonder what Jeff Tremaine did on this film to be credited as a director since most of the stunts seem to have been planned by the performers themselves. Instead of the meaning of life we get the meaning of pain as we see the boys get shot by rubber pellets fired from what can only be described as a rubber pellet bomb. You won?t find character development here unless you consider eating horse doo-doo something that builds character.

As for technical work most of the film looks like it was filmed with one camera. In fact in one scene where they show the camera crew I almost fell out of my chair to see how many crew they had. I suspect that the guys took much of their budget for this movie and spent it on beer and strippers.

One of the aspects about the stunts that I like is that the guys are laughing at themselves for the most part. While they are borderline cruel, that cruelty is directed at willing participants. The few innocent bystanders who get caught up in the fray are usually only mildly embarrassed or annoyed rather than targeted because they are easy to pick on. At the end of the day all I can say is that we laughed pretty hard through most of this movie. Yes it is stupid and juvenile and dumb and senseless, but no one does those things better than Knoxville and his crew.

4.5 stars out of 5 for fans *deducted half a star for some really gross scenes we couldn't watch.

0 stars out of 5 for non-fans.