This is something so much beyond slapstick comedy, reality television or the self-proclaimed “stupid” movies of our generation.
This is pain.
Pure and simple.
For those confused about the premise of the Jackass television series and films, they should rest assured that there is, in fact, no premise.
The film is largely a gaggle of short stunts and pranks, ranging from riding shopping carts strapped with rocket jets to the more obscene sport of attaching leeches to people’s eyes or freezing one’s genitals on an ice sculpture.
These do not even begin to scratch the surface of the film’s extremes. For instance, there is a scene involving genitals and a snake.
Of course, stunts like this mark a change between this and the previous movie. There are still gross (in every sense of the word) stunts in both films. Bear in mind, you will witness things you wish you had not — things NBC’s now-cancelled Fear Factor would not touch with a pole of any length.
The movie just plain hurts and is not shy to hide the cries, wounds and occasionally gushing bodily fluids, ranging from blood to, well, other stuff, of every cast member. And while it’s impossible to tell which parts of the film could have been improvised somewhat by Hollywood and modern editing, there are just some stunts you can not fake.
The film’s rating varies in relation to your personal threshold for pain — sometimes simple and fun and sometimes just anatomically upsetting. But for whatever the film drops in your lap, it can at least be considered unique.
Jackass: Number Two reminds us that pain and the overall unknown are just a part of life. This is not about saying how far we have come as a society or asking the populace to rally under one banner and stop things like Jackass from happening.
Jackass is escaping to a place where people are happy to suffer for our enjoyment.
No matter how bad your day is, it could always be Jackass‘.