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STUDIO: Paramount Home Video
MSRP: $19.99
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 64 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- The making of Jackass 2.5
- The making of Jackass the Game
- Bonus segments and stunts
- Photo gallery
The Pitch
It’s half the movie Jackass: Number Two was. No, really it is.
The Humans
Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Preston Lacy, Steve-O, Wee Man, Chris Pontius, etc.
Ironically, this doctor is about to do to Knoxville what The Dukes of Hazzard remake did to everyone…
The Nutshell
When Knoxville and his gang of adrenalized, self-mutliating, fart smelling, anal probing, vomit inducing, hell raising miscreants got together to film their second Jackass movie, Number Two, they had enough footage left over that didn’t make it into the film to do another half a movie, which culminated in 2.5. Here the Jackass crew indulge in everything from anal bead kite flying, to mini motorcycle grocery shopping, to a gator-filled, hellish paintball Cajun gauntlet, to getting a shot in the beans from and Indian kid with elephant-sized feet.
It was a good thing the finished product turned out so well, because the early test footage of Peter Jackson’s King Kong didn’t look promising…
The Lowdown
I’ve never been what you called a Jackass devotee, but I could always appreciate some of the crazy shit Knoxvile et al could think up to do, some of it unbelievably painful, and hilariously humiliating. If you’re looking for any semblance of logic in the actions of the Jackass crew, you’re jumping the wheat thresher in the wrong rocket powered shopping cart. Jackass has always been about one thing and one thing only: a group of friends thinking up the most unusually painful and demeaning things a human can endure and filming it, often with hilarious results. No topic or ethnic group is off limits. If they can humilate someone – or more importantly themselves – they’re going to do it. This includes impersonating old people who like to relieve themselves in public or dressing up as Arabs with makeshift pubic hair beards and dynamite strapped to their chests. Anything and everything goes, and afterwards, impalings, blood, knocked out teeth, concussions or trips to the hospital are not out of the norm. It’s hard to decide who’s crazier: the nimrods on the screen or the idiots at home who tried to duplicate their antics with frequently disastrous results.
Looks like Steve-O finally got around to seeing the latest Tara Reid bikini pic…
As a viewer, generally you’re going to fall into two camps on Jackass: either you’re going to be a prude and be repulsed at the antics of these guys, decry them as a fringe subculture and lament the direction society as a whole is taking, or you’re going to be able to sit back and laugh your ass off. Me? I was frequently laughing so hard I almost threw up. Some of their gags, such as the Cajun Obstacle Course, in which the guys had to scurry boot camp-style through a pit of medium-sized alligators, a gauntlet of rednecks with paintball guns, and a sty of shit-covered pigs before downing a shot-full of Cajun spit is side-splittingly funny. Another gag where Steve-O, easily the most prone to self-mutilation and the go-to guy for the most vile stunts imaginable is trying to enact "the Poof" stunt in morbidly obese castmate Preston Lacy. Basically they poured baby powder in his cavernous ass crack and tried to induce a fart, resulting in a poof of the powder geyser-style. When all attempts failed, Steve-O tried to blow air into Lacy’s anus through a straw and inadvertently gets the poof – right in the face. An uproarious laughing fit by the collective ensued, followed by Steve-O’s mad dash for the balcony to puke. Puking is almost a Steve-O trademark as he does it quite frequently, including after drinking beer poured down the disgustingly, world-recordly long fingernails of an Indian gentleman.
Caption A: Both Patton and George C. Scott are spinning like dervishes in their graves…
Caption B: The Army finally got over their whole "gays in the military" thing and just went for it…
Some of the gags do fall a little flat, like when some of the guys hung around a fringe group of Indians who like to eat flesh and bodily fluids and practice self-mutilation themselves – even to a point that’s beyond any of the Jackass crew. And it is funny to see exactly what the limits are of a stunt that these guys won’t do, such as Steve-O preparing to unicycle over a bed of hot coals or Margera complaining to high heaven about laying on a bed of Indian nails and having 10-foot long cobras deposited on his chest. Also, in an homage to a certain giant gorilla, Preston Lacy was spray painted black and wears a partial ape suit and is attacked by remote controlled airplanes while standing on top of a port-a-potty. The first iteration of the stunt wasn’t very good as Lacy is afraid of heights. But a little Xanax seems to work wonders later on as you can imagine. In fact, that seems to be a running joke that many of the guys are plied with alcohol or drugged up in order to pull off some of these stunts. It’s up to you to decide.
Am I the only one thankful that the producers of Total Recall didn’t go with their original concept for Kuato…
Jackass 2.5 is essentially a film of leftovers, but even some of these are ridiculously funny. However I do agree that this particular collection of stunts works better on video than it would in a theatre. And it’s good that if they’re going to show this stuff, that it be unrated, otherwise what’s the point? There’s also interviews with the cast and crew about how some things were left out of the theatrical film and their reaction to that, plus how some of the stunts came to be and what it’s like to do them. Finally, allow me to throw a caveat emptor in here while I’m at it: don’t, repeat don’t watch this while you’re eating. There are live, up close shots of rectums, shit of the liquid green and chunky brown varieties, copious vomiting, male sacks, and enough manflesh in thongs and / or gay situations to make even a card carrying member of GLAAD blush. Otherwise, it’s just your garden variety male infantile lunacy. Nice.
And yet, this is still preferable to listening to Ann Coulter…
The Package
There are a couple of special features of note, the first being The Making of Jackass 2.5, which is a typical behind-the-scenes piece running a little over 20 minutes. There’s also another featurette, The Making of Jackass the Game, which shows the guys doing some motion capture in their unique style for the video game version of the show that also clocks in at just over 20 minutes. The most perplexing special feature, however, is the Bonus Segments collection, which runs about 45 minutes. Essentially, this is the leftovers of the leftovers, some of which could have been incorporated into the main feature. A photo gallery rounds out the offerings.
Unless of course you’re Paris Hilton, Kevin Federline, Michael Jackson, Howard K. Stern, Nancy Grace, Britney or Jamie Lynn Spears, Lindsay Lohan, O.J. Simpson, that stupid, diaper-wearing astronaut bitch, a wannabe airline shoe bomber, Dick Cheney, or the Kenyan cop who stopped me and my wife for no reason and then took a bribe to keep us out of jail on trumped up traffic charges even though there were no posted signs indicating a one way street, then feel free to go crazy.