Susan Granger’s review of “Jackass 3-D” (MTV Films/Paramount Pictures)
There’s a viewing appreciation difference between males and females. And this comedy franchise is a perfect case in point. Based on an MTV series, it’s a carnival of cruelty that is wildly popular among young men. To me, it’s a disgusting, repellent, R-rated extension of the kind of slapstick that made “The 3.Stooges” so popular.
The term ‘slapstick’ comes from the name of a paddle once used in farces to whack the actors, making a loud noise. Slapstick generally involves using humiliation and pain to elicit laughter: someone hit with a pie in the face or slipping on a banana peel. Because early movies, or ‘flickers,’ were designed as entertainment for the poor and uneducated, the lowbrow appeal of slapstick was universal. Now the reckless, idiotic pranks are amplified by the use of 3-D technology.
In this third outing, Johnny Knoxville and his cohorts (Steve-O, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna, Preston Lacy) perform a variety of practical jokes and numbskull stunts, including climbing a 40-foot pine dressed as Santa and his elf – and then having the tree sawed down, hurling them both to the ground. Scatological gags abound, like having a pig gobble an apple perched in obese Preston Lacy’s ass, and there’s a bar brawl by midget combatants, involving midget cops and midget ambulance drivers. Perhaps the most elaborate animal gag is having Johnny and the gang roller-skate in a herd of buffalo.
Directed by “Jackass” co-creator Jeff Tremaine and co-produced by Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jonze, it’s filled with gross, gruesome scenes of guys getting whacked in their private parts and doubling over in agony, a mean-spirited notion which men seem to find absolutely hilarious in a kind of demented` camaraderie. Exploiting the gimmicky 3-D concept, there’s also a constant barrage of objects hurled at the audience.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Jackass 3-D” is a crude, vulgar, sadomasochistic 3, turning a Port-A-Potty full of excrement into a theme-park ride. As someone astutely observes, “This isn’t the best idea.”
