Starring: Johnny Knoxville Directed by: Jeff Tremaine
When I was in high school, the cutting edge in class projects was making a video. Inevitably one in four students had parents with a clunky mid-1990s camera. Every once in a while we had some humorous outtakes – a dog barks at the 
exact time two characters are shaking hands, somebody trips over a fallen branch while being chased through the forest by wiener dogs, Mac Duff turns into an alien and slays Macbeth and friends, somebody starts cracking up about the rubber rat and (also fake) disembodied foot just…sitting there in the frame while someone else it trying to do a serious newscast about the problems of trench foot and trench rats during WWI.
Basically, everything we thought was funny while filming wasn't remotely funny to anyone else.
Herein lies the beauty of Jackass. It began on MTV as a series based on people who made videos of themselves doing stupid stunts that people found hilarious. Why in the world it is funny to see grown men snort wasabi up their nose (then promptly vomit), shoot bottle rockets out of their asses, give themselves paper cuts and devise myriad ways get hit in the nuts or fall off a skateboard/roller skates/bike/pretty much anything with wheels – I don't understand it. But it makes me laugh. A lot.
I was initially hesitant about seeing Jackass 3 and waited until it was on video. The TV show and first movie: comedy gold. Jackass Number Two was, literally, a turd. It had too many snakes and too much gratuitous poop for me to really enjoy it.
Jackass 3 falls solidly between the two. It doesn't quite recapture the ridiculous magic of Night Pandas, Hardware Store Crap or Golf Course Airhorns, but it does revisit quite a few classic gags (no pun intended…though there are more than a few gags from the cast, crew and potentially viewers).
The highlights:
- Wee Bar Brawl – starring Jason "Wee Man" Acuña and others. The reactions of the other bar patrons are absolutely classic.
- Jet Stream. Ever wanted to see how powerful of a wind storm a jet engine can kick up? How far will it chuck a bag of flour, a tomato, a shoe? Will it be funny to see people get knocked over while trying to walk into the wind? Of course. This skit also prompts Johnny Knoxville to say, "That's the story of Jackass there! Pissing in the wind!"
- Roller Buffalo – funnier more to see Johnny Knoxville dancing around on roller skates in a muddy buffalo pen while wearing a pink 1950s-style cardign emblazoned with the Jackass logo than the buffalo charge.
- Bungee Boogie – More stupid ramp tricks, though the surfboard-on-a-skateboard stunt is pretty awesome.
- Scooter Shopping – not quite as funny as some of the 'old man shenanigans' from prior skits, but pretty hilarious. Crowd reactions are always the best part.
The lowlights:
- Super Mighty Glue – involves ripping off chest/back/chin hair via a handful of super glue. Kinda painful to watch.
- Sweat Suit Cocktail – involved Steve-O drinking bodily fluids then vomiting profusely. This one almost made me toss my cookies.
- Lamborghini Tooth Pull – need I say more
- Snake Pit - I hate snakes. Probably not as much as Bam Margera or Indiana Jones, but I still have some trouble seeing a bunch of the legless reptiles wriggling around, ready for action.
If you:
- Enjoy the ridiculous stunts the Jackass crew invents – or at least the crowd reactions when they do the stunts in public
- Would enjoy America's Funniest Home Videos – with a naughty twist
- Have ever secretly had a crush on Johnny Knoxville or any of his stupid buddies
Put it in the queue!
If you:
- Strongly dislike seeing people eliminate bodily fluids (vomit, poo, urine, blood) on camera
- Don't think people getting hit in the nuts is funny
- Have never found Jackass even remotely humorous before
Don't put it in the queue.
Written by Jennifer Venson