It’s definitely a movie.

I wholly expect this to be the shortest review I will ever write for How About Notflix. I finally got around to watching Jackass Forever now that it’s on Paramount+, and I’m happy to say that my reservations about the movie being toned down, or overly nostalgic, or trying to recapture lightning in a bottle, were completely wrong.

There’s been a few changes since Jackass 3; Bam Margera took a nosedive into a pile of drugs and got fired, Rip Taylor died, Ryan Dunn died, Phil Margera died, Matt Hoffman was in the hospital as was Manny Puig. But for the most part everyone you love is back; Steve-o, Johnny Knoxville, Wee-Man, Preston Lacy, Chris Pontius, etc, etc. There are a lot of celebrity cameos in this film, particularly in the opening credits sequence which features a tribute to old Godzilla films using Chris Pontius’ penis painted green as the actor for the kaiju monster. The whole sequence ends with a snapping turtle biting Pontius’ dick.

The movie also has a lot of newcomers like Zach Holmes (Zackass) who is sort of a new-age Preston Lacy and quickly became my favorite new player. There’s also Rachel Wolfson, Eric Manaka, Jasper Dolphin, Sean “Poopies” McInerney, a whole bunch of people you’ve never heard of before in all likelihood. Cameraman Lance still throws up constantly, including a scene where the stunt evidently gets cancelled as Preston Lacy accidentally craps his pants on set. I’m not joking.

More conscious viewers might appreciate how obvious the cast/crew makes it that the well being of animals used on set is looked after. Generally in stunts involving dangerous animals, the performers are strapped down to prevent them from accidentally harming any of the animals, and a handler is always on set. They bring on Compston “Dark Shark” Wilson whose son Jasper Dolphin audibly notes in the film “I got you a job” to do a competition involving a tarantula. Even though Wilson loses, they don’t have him get bit as it’s obvious the tarantula’s safety would be in danger. In another scene Wee-Man is strapped down while a vulture eats raw meat off of his body, and he gets yelled at a couple of times to not kick out.

If you’ve seen the prior Jackass movies, you know where this is going. A series of unconnected stunts mixed with scenes of the crew messing with each other behind the scenes. There is a lot of blood, a lot of injuries to the testicles, a lot of vomit, animal semen, and gratuitous shots of people getting punched, kicked, body slammed, bitten, stung, and clawed. It’s not a movie for the squeamish, like the scene where Rachel Wolfson gets stabbed in the mouth with a scorpion stinger.

I’ll be honest I got a little queasy at a couple points and muted the movie when Lance constantly kept retching into his mask. Seeing the camera crew all wearing Covid masks while Danger Ehren literally gets his ass kicked by a heavyweight boxer is kind of funny. The film put several of its actors in the hospital at one point or another, and since the scenes were not shot in sequence it’s fun to spot Knoxville’s broken wrist as it comes and goes. It’s not an intelligent movie, there’s no plot structure, and it’s entirely centered around watching people get injured in interesting ways. Jackass is back, baby.

Guess this wasn’t so short. A Jackass 4.5 will show up on Netflix at some point because they shot enough to make pretty much a complete other film.

Rating: A