TMS Movie Review: Jackass Forever

(Sean Cliver / Paramount Pictures)

“Hello, I’m Johnny Knoxville, and welcome to ‘Jackass!’” Let’s start at the beginning. In the early 1990s, young New Yorker Spike Jonze (alias of Adam Spiegel) began his fruitful screen career directing professional skateboarding videos and music videos. The latter included classic, landmark videos like the Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ (1994), Weezer’s ‘Buddy Holly’ (1994) and the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Elektrobank’ (1997), which starred Jonze’s then girlfriend Sofia Coppola. Not long into his relationship with Coppola, Jonze crosses over to moviemaking and in no time got a Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards for his first feature film, Being John Malkovich (1999). Now, naturally a lot of people would assume and predict Jonze’s modest video days are behind him with that kind of upgrade. And it would seem like that to the average viewer, since Jonze followed up with the critical hits Adaptation (2002) and Where the Wild Things Are (2009), and eventually won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with his own penned Her (2013).

What might be surprising to some is that during all this, Jonze kept collaborating on niche projects, including MTV’s “Jackass” (2000-02). Old skateboarding scene friend Jeff Tremaine and struggling actor Johnny Knoxville asked Jonze to help them pitch a prank/stunt program to the popular cable channel. Seemingly being a good friend with a decent sense of humor, the trio soon became the creators of a two decade long franchise. What’s even more surprising to me is—if you look at Jonze’s IMDb or Wiki pages—he hasn’t really done much since his Oscar win outside of co-producing Jackass related content and directing the music documentary Beastie Boys Story (2020). Of course, after reaching the pinnacle of respect in the film industry, I can’t say I blame him for wanting to spend time having fun filming pranks and extreme stunts.

(Sean Cliver / Paramount Pictures)

Jackass Forever is now the fourth theatrical release under the brand name since Jackass 3D (2010), this time with a swan song mood. Jonze is back as producer, Tremaine as director, Knoxville as host and leader of the crew. All of the usual faces from the original show and past movies also return with the exception of Ryan Dunn, who passed in 2011, and Bam Margera, who was fired early into filming and cited as an alleged legal liability. Save for catching a random episode here and there on TV when I was in middle school, Forever is actually my first ever full viewing of anything Jackass related. And let me tell you, I was not prepared for so many of these elaborate, absurd pranks to include full frontal, close-ups of male nudity. I think I’ve seen enough flaccid penis, ballsacks and bodily fluids on the big screen to last me a lifetime. This on top of the general grotesque and pain-tolerating gags, makes for what might be the most I’ve winced and closed my eyes during a movie. I guess it’s a testament to the guys’ judgment that one of the new pranksters this time, Rachel Wolfson, is a woman and completely clothed throughout the feature.

Whether you enjoy watching these wild and crazy antics, or are just completely appalled and grossed out; you can’t accuse the Jackass team of false advertising. It’s near impossible to enter one of these films and claim you were misled on the content. I was disgusted, impressed, enlightened, amused and entertained by how far this group of old and new friends were willing to go to pull off the dangerous stunts in Jackass Forever. One thing did go through my mind a couple of times while watching the new movie, or really any staged prank/stunt on YouTube, Vine or TikTok. It’s the aged old question of: why is our natural reaction to laugh when we see someone fall, crash or get hit in the crotch? It’s been a stock gag for humor since the beginning of time and seems to still work no matter what year or visual medium. I don’t really have an answer to the question, but if you like this kind of overly elaborate slapstick comedy, Jackass Forever is right up your alley.