"WARNING: The stunts in this movie were performed by professionals." What exactly qualifies Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, WeeMan, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and the other boys as professionals? Not too sure, but I've never seen anything more entertaining.
The end of the Jackass television show on MTV was a great loss. Though Viva La Bam and Wild Boyz are amusing, they can't replicate the spontaneity and creativity of the original show. The crew regrouped and created Jackass Number Two, a sequel to the original 2002 movie. Despite the usual trend of disappointing sequels, this movie goes above and beyond everyone's expectations.
The most impressive factor of this movie is the pain threshold of these boys. It's positively inhuman. Not only do they withstand excruciating pain, they actually enjoy it. They are giddy after every stunt, left laughing at themselves and each other. They endure everything including leeches sucking sensitive areas, fish hooks through the cheek and stampeding bulls. In that sense, it's fair to say that they are talented.
The greatest task for the Jackass crew was duplicate their creativity without repeating past stunts. This movie successfully showcased their ridiculous and unique acts. Bam even explained his ingenious thought process: When he has a new idea, instead of writing it out and considering all the logistics and risk factors, he makes a simple stick figure drawing and faxes it to the producers. Remember, these guys are professionals.
Without ruining the movie, here are a few things to look forward to. Dave England performs Firehouse Rodeo while riding a firehose on full blast suspended in midair. Following this stunt, Johnny Knoxville is excited to comment, "We have rectal bleeding -- another first for Jackass." Manny, a professional animal trainer from Animal Planet and frequent guest of the Jackass series, leads the guys in a number of stunts. Johnny Knoxville must find and remove two 12 foot. anacondas from a children's ball pit. "They tried to kill J.Lo and Ice Cube." Of course, Bam pulls a few pranks on his poor parents, April and Phil. They replace Phil with Preston Lacey next to a sleeping April at 3 a.m. Sadly his uncle, Don Vito, doesn't make an appearance; this could be a result of the child molestation charges but nevertheless, it's a disappointment.
There are one too many stunts that include running from bulls. Throughout the movie, they repeated scenes of two guys dressed as an elderly man and woman. In the stunt entitled "Old Man Balls", a fake ball sack hung out the old man's shorts as he paraded around town. The old woman's dress was constantly popping open exposing her sagging chest. These scenes could have been dramatically cut as they simply repeated the same humor.
The audience was laughing, screaming and cringing the entire 95 minutes. This movie is not for the faint of heart. Be warned that this movie contains nudity, defecation, animal masturbation, blood, pubic hair and vomiting. The movie was edited in a way that brought the audience over the edge with grotesque humor and then balanced it with a mellower scene.
It is especially fun to see the movie with a group of guys, much of the humor results from torture of the male genitalia. This movie seemed much more nauseating than the original. Then again it's hard to compare the leeches on the eyeball appearing in the sequel with paper cuts in-between the toes from the original.
For those who enjoy the humor of Tom Green, South Park, and CKY, you will love Jackass: Number Two. It's a ridiculous spectacle of the American success story- uneducated, immature full-grown men become millionaires by allowing venomous snakes bite their penises. One small suggestion -- don't eat before seeing this movie.
