Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Eagle
Delivering American University's news and views since 1925
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Eagle
Wildlife pornographer Chris Pontius is one with the longhorn in the new 'Jackass' film installment.

Raucous 'Jackass' sequel not for the faint of heart

How much insanity can you fit into a 90-minute film? And how many times can you make people's stomachs churn while they burst into hysterical laughter?

For the cast and crew of the slapstick comedy "Jackass: Number 2," it's a lot. From start to finish, audiences are shown skits at once so vile and yet so incredibly ridiculous that they cannot help but break into uncontrollable fits of laughter. That is, so long as they can hold on to their lunch.

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, Bam Margera and Steve-O, mainstays of both the original MTV show "Jackass" and the first "Jackass" movie, the film takes slapstick to a point it has never reached before. The endless stream of skits assaults the audience's dignity, and yet they go so far over the edge that viewers must laugh or fear losing their minds. Limits are totally nonexistent in a film that boasts red-hot cattle brands, bodily excrements of man and beast, terrorists, pubic hair and a host of other acts and topics that many would consider morally horrifying. Yet that is what makes the film so funny.

As uproarious as the film is, it is not for the faint of heart or conservative of morals. Every rule is broken, every boundary stepped over. Things that no normal, rational thinking human being on the face of the earth would attempt are carried out, and then some.

Scenes include the wrestling of a giant anaconda and numerous propulsions into the atmosphere with a host of equipment, ranging from bicycles to giant rockets. The cast totally disregards its own safety, health, hygiene and what is left of its humanity.

But why do they subject themselves to such horrific stunts? That perhaps is the single most lingering question raised by the film. What on earth would drive a man to drink and eat things that had, shall we say, already been processed? How much money and how few brain cells are required to prompt public nudity, self-mutilation and a slew of other things that can only be seen on the big screen?

The only plausible explanation is that not only did the makers of the film never grow up at all, but they most likely have lost a few million years of evolution that begot normal decency and common sense.

Yet, however disgusting and horrific the film may be, it is so inhumanly morbid that it cannot help but be funny. Moviegoers find themselves watching grown, or perhaps not so grown, men subject themselves to fishhooks in their mouths, blindfolded bullfighting and beer going into their rectums. Yet through it all, the entire audience laughed, and laughed, and then for good measure, laughed some more.

In truth, to call the film slapstick comedy is grossly understating what could more accurately be described as senseless, chaos-ridden self-mutilation. There is simply no word in the English language that accurately depicts the hysterical horror thrust at audiences from start to finish.


 Hosts Delaney Hoke and Penelope Jennings speak to swimmer Caleb Farris and diver Amanda bosses about their unique experiences as college athletes. 



Powered by Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2024 The Eagle, American Unversity Student Media