Jackass 3D (2010)

VERDICT:
6/10 Herniated Discs

Has its moments, but they’re getting too old for this shit.

Jackass 3D is about the same thing Jackass has always been about: dudes voluntarily getting their asses kicked, ingesting/regurgitating the most vile shit you can imagine, and every once in a while messing with the general public by dressing up as old farts, staging a bar fight with little people, or having a little person run after a fat guy. They catch it all on camera, they keep upping the ante and hope that no one dies, and, oh, how we laugh.

So as far as the stunts are concerned, it’s a bit all over the place. Some had me laughing here and there, others left me disturbed, and when push came to shove, there were only two skits of the whole bunch that had me howling like a bastard. The first involves hijinks with a jet engine and the second involves a horribly shaken-up Ehren Mcghehey trying to pin the tail on a real-life donkey without getting kicked in the taint. I don’t know if it translates as well in text, but, yeah, those two were gold. Other than that, I just couldn’t kick the feeling that I kinda feel bad for these guys.

The thing is, I’ve got history with Jackass. The show first hit the airwaves during my freshman or sophomore year of high school, and being part of the show’s ideal demographic, it was a comedic revelation if there ever was one. It was all the best parts of America’s Funniest Home Videos, it was a group of guys literally volunteering to get hit in the balls, and they were doing it all for me. Life couldn’t get any better, the world was at their fingertips, and I’ll still watch those MTV re-runs on the rare occasions when there isn’t a Jersey Shore marathon on.

And while part of me watches this and wants to say “more power to ’em” because I’ll always have a special place in my heart for nutshots, I think of the footage during the end credits where Johnny Knoxville is hanging out with his infant kid in a Baby Bjorn and it doesn’t seem as funny anymore. I mean, on the one hand, I can imagine that the options for a career change are pretty slim when your name is synonymous with movies where grown men shove toy cars up their asses. After all, they did start a phenomenon and there’s still very much an audience that’s all about grown men shoving toy cars up their asses. On the other, why the fuck are you still doing this shit when you’ve got a kid? It’s not that they can’t take the pain or anything because they’re clearly up for that challenge, it just seems like these guys are still stuck in their glory days when they might be better off moving on to greener pastures.

I don’t know, folks. The thing that bugs me more than anything is how they keep on upping the pain and the vomit with each new entry. When “Danger” Ehren gets his adult tooth pulled out by a Lamborghini or Steve-O gets bungeed in a fully stocked porta potty, the only thing that comes to mind is that these guys are losing sight about what was so awesome about Jackass to begin with. The best skits were never about shock value or surviving legitimately life-threatening situations, they were about setting off bullhorns during a golfer’s backswing and taking some hits without having to worry about having kids or ending up in the morgue. Like I said, there is some really funny stuff peppered into the mix here, but for the most part, most of this is some seriously gnarly, vile shit that doesn’t seem to fit when performed by men in their late 30s.

Although I’ve gotta give ’em credit when it comes to making the most out of 3D technology. After all, I don’t know think anyone was expecting any special effects with this one, so all the dildos flying at your face should come as no surprise. I don’t know if any porn studios have taken advantage of that yet, and something tells me that the same technology isn’t gonna be showcased in Avatar 2, so points for originality, I suppose.

Alright, I realize that this review is probably way heavier than it needs to be and that a more fitting write-up would have been “get drunk, watch this, laugh”, but for some reason this was exactly the kind of stuff that was running through my head during Jackass 3D. Sorry if any of it came off as contradictory, ’cause I’m still not really sure how I feel about the whole thing anyway. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy myself and I hope I don’t sound like the most hifalutin, snobby prick on the blogosphere right now, I guess I’m just hoping that this was the swan song for the Jackass crew. But if you’re looking for mindless comedy that takes slapstick to new bone-crushing, stomach-churning levels, this won’t disappoint. Didn’t have to be so gross and didn’t have to be so brutal, then again, it’s not like I wasn’t laughing.