Jackass Forever Parent Guide

Those familiar with the Jackass franchise will know that there’s no plot worth describing for you. Technically, this is a documentary, but that’s like describing the unhinged scribbling on the walls of a public toilet as a novel. This is 96 minutes of dangerous madness involving dozens of deranged adults attempting to cause serious injuries in the name of what can loosely be described as public entertainment.

If you’re unsure how that translates into actual on-screen content, let me tell you how this movie opens: A five-to-ten minute segment featuring a cast member’s penis made to resemble Godzilla rampaging through a miniature town, intercut with stunt segments from other performers reacting to the menacing phallus. No, it doesn’t get better from there. Yes, there is a lot more nudity. No, you won’t be able to un-see any of this. Yes, I should get hazard pay, and yes, I’m considering setting up an online fundraiser to pay for my therapy.

There is certainly a preoccupation with the male genitalia in the film, as other members…well, members, are squished; punched; hit with softballs, hockey pucks, and pogo sticks; stung by bees; and used as a speedbag. If that doesn’t deter you, I should let you know that this is the first movie I’ve ever seen that made me gag involuntarily – a normal reaction, judging by the sounds I heard behind me in the theatre, to watching a grown man voluntarily chug about half a glass of pig semen.

Now, existing Jackass fans may be thinking “Hey, where are all the other injuries I’ve come to expect?” Fear not, there’s plenty of tazing, bludgeoning, and general mayhem. But there is a much greater focus on gross-out gags than on dangerous stunts, which I think is a product of the ageing cast. The first Jackass movie came out twenty years ago. Most of these guys are 50 or close to it. Their ability to get up after, for example, getting charged by an enraged bull, just isn’t what it was two decades ago.

But I do have a confession to make. I still laughed at several points in the film. The complete unlikability of almost every person on screen really makes it kind of fun when they get, for example, suspended six feet in the air by their underpants, or covered in honey and confronted with a live bear. Franchise fans will probably still have fun with this batch of ageing morons. Everyone else? Find something else. Anything else. You’re never going to be able to forget an underwater closeup of Steve-O’s butthole while they try to light a fart underwater.