In the same way that the good punk bands generally don’t do reunion tours, something felt off about the “Jackass” gang getting back together as many are hitting the big 5-0. When piss and vinegar are the two active ingredients in your formula to success, aging can be a real motherfucker; no one wants to watch the anarchic hellraisers they remember soften into slower, tamer versions of themselves. The band of merry masochists laughed in the face of time with their “mischievous old person” bits, but with his shock of white hair, ringleader Johnny Knoxville now looks more like his recurring character Irving Zisman that we may care to admit. Stapling your testicles to a 2×4 is a young man’s game, is it not?
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In the psychotically entertaining “Jackass Forever,” the guys are not unaware that they’re getting long in the chipped tooth. That’s why, as part-time Party Boy, Chris Pontius, explains in off-the-cuff song while everyone preps for another unspeakable demonstration of the body’s tolerance for pain, they’ve anointed the next generation. Bringing in a half-dozen fresh faces doesn’t just perk up the routine, inject some welcome diversity, and provide an out for the oldsters from some of the more punishing experiments, but it also illustrates how spectacular idiocy is a grand American tradition that didn’t start with this Cirque du Soleil of genital abuse and won’t end with it. One hundred years from now, kids will be flying off their hoverboards trying to jump over Lincoln Log stacks of their friends. That a few fortunate souls get the privilege of undertaking the most innovative acts of penile mutilation this side of “Antichrist” with the ones who elevated it to a national art form is a beautiful, poignant thing.
Second only to the awe-inspiring resilience of the scrotum, the “Jackass” franchise is about togetherness. The authentic chemistry between the cast members and their circle of skate-rat affiliates — director Jeff Tremaine, wild card Spike Jonze, weak-stomached videographer Lance Bangs — is a significant part of the franchise’s initial appeal, letting us join a bunch of buddies who genuinely enjoyed hanging out and screwing with each other. Beneath the gallons upon gallons of the finest porcine ejaculate Paramount’s money can buy, there’s a camaraderie that welcomes all like-minded daredevils. Odd Future hooligan Jasper Dolphin, British import Eric Manaka, and “Too Stupid To Die” creator Zach Holmes were raised on “Jackass,” all reveling in the surreal honor of getting tased by their idols. It’s moving to see elder statesmen like Knoxville and Steve-O instantly accept the fearless Sean “Poopies” McInerney as one of their own, his permanent sunburn and seeming willingness to do anything casting him as a natural successor to the dearly departed Ryan Dunn. Gamest woman alive Rachel Wolfson takes a scorpion to the lip like a champ but doesn’t get much playtime.
The film can sometimes feel a tad crowded as the torch gets passed and then promptly used to self-immolate. Steve-O and Knoxville take one truly excruciating stand apiece at the mercy of the animal kingdom, the former covering his penis in bees while the latter goes mano-a-mano with a testy bull. The lion’s (or, rather, bear’s) share of the torment is heaped on indefatigable punching bag Danger Ehren McGhehey and too-old-for-this-shit Preston Lacy, both of whom clinch each bit’s slapstick comedy with the utter despair in their eyes. But they take their lumps, get up, walk away, and everyone laughs it off. This is the miracle of the “Jackass” weltanschauung, that somehow there’s no malice in tricking your pals into rolling around on thumbtacks in a pitch-black room.
We can crack open the apparatus of these films like so many skateboarders’ craniums to figure out what makes them so curiously transcendent, but the fact is that these pleasures are simple and immediate. The more involved productions of the opening number and grand finale (Pontius’ dong has never looked so glorious, and we’ve seen a lot of it over the years) can’t compare to the crude brilliance of the Rube-Goldberg-for-Dummies segments. Some tastes may not be receptive to the pure, radiant joy of a world-renowned pitcher whipping a softball toward a man’s nuts at cup-denting speed. Those people cannot be helped. The rest of us have one last downward-spiral ride with the best and brightest of Gen X, not invulnerable to the effects of middle age but putting up one hell of a fight all the same. Though they can’t keep doing this forever, while witnessing the magnificence of Steve-O using his flattened phallus to play paddleball, it sure feels like they can. Their every stunt is death-defying, in the Evel Knievel and existential senses. [B+]
“Jackass Forever” arrives in theaters on February 4.