1 of 5 | From left, Johnny Knoxville, Dr. Julie Mizener, Chris Pontius and Sean “Poopies” McInerney star in “Jackass: Best and Last,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Jackass: Best and Last, in theaters Friday, is That’s Entertainment for the Jackass franchise. And Best and Last still has more new material than those three musical clip shows.
The fifth theatrically released Jackass film, as there have been three video features of outtakes from each sequel, is about 50% archival retrospective. The Best in the subtitle seemingly stands for “best of” as well as topping their previous stunts, and includes some footage never aired on MTV.
The very first video Johnny Knoxville recorded in 1998 already sows the seeds for comedy that developed in sophistication, and escalating raunchiness. Wearing Kevlar and stuffing his shirt with porno magazines for extra insulation, Knoxville shoots himself with a .38 Smith & Wesson.
What makes it more comedic than just a dangerous stunt is the timing. He only loads one bullet, so the five clicks build up tension. A new subtitle warning also contributes humor.
Another banned-from-MTV clip includes many blurred faces, so they never even got those people to sign release forms. One was banned for imitability, so the subtext is if the grown-up viewer paid for a ticket to an R-rated movie, they can be trusted to heed the film’s warnings not to imitate its stunts.
The new material does indeed raise the bar they’ve set in three seasons, five movies and spinoffs. A replay of the Dum Dum Game involves trivia about their historic stunts, bringing it full circle.
After showing clips of classic Port-a-potty stunts, Steve-O plays a Twister game with three others after they’ve all taken colonoscopy laxatives. They have the decency to wear plastic pants.
When electrocuting Sean “Poopies” McInerney and Steve-O, the victims’ tasks escalate from shaving to tattooing. Steve-O’s tattoo task involves Zach Holmes submitting to Steve-O’s erratically shocked needle. Later, Poopies even attempts circus feats with a taser on a sensitive body part.
The group performs like a veteran improv troupe. They know each other, they know the bits they are performing and can add to the commentary and/or timing.
In another of Steve-O’s anally fixated ideas, Knoxville brings out a bullseye target. Steve-O’s reaction is funnier than the fact that he doesn’t even come close to the target.
Chris Pontius attempts a naked high jump, referred to as The Pole Vault for double entendre purposes. But Pontius is committed to trying again until he clears the bar, but also being as ridiculous as possible with his naked body.
A marionette stunt hangs Ehren McGhehey, Dave England and Jason “Wee Man” Acuña on strings, trapping them to be pelted by random objects. With the electric shock bits, Knoxville delays shocks long enough to make Poopies or Steve-O react reflexively to nothing.
Jackass enters the AI era with robot 1W Larry. Adam Ray gives it a voice and improvises banter and smack talk just like the human cast.
Escape rooms have been popular for decades, but a Jackass style escape room effectively satirizes the modern social activity.
Poor cameraman Lance Bangs is still retching at many of the scatological stunts, but makes it through the grossest one when others succumb.
Some stunts can last the entire film. When Poopies gets lip filler, he looks ridiculous immediately, but still has inflated lips in the background of later scenes. By the way, the lip filler needle is the hardest to watch.
If Jackass: Best and Last really is final, then Jackass can go down in history as the very first franchise to truly never make another entry after declaring its final chapter. Even Sharknado is back and Friday the 13th famously survived two “final” chapters.
Knoxville gets genuinely emotional when explaining why this really is the last film. Logically, it’s because they are essentially athletes and in their 50s cannot withstand escalating injuries, but it is also genuinely closing a chapter of life.
It is also nice to see the late Ryan Dunn, who died in a 2011 automobile accident, in retrospective clips.
Rachel Wolfson, who joined the crew in Jackass Forever along with Poopies, Holmes and others, is unfortunately not central to any of the new stunts. She helps facilitate the escape room and is always on the sidelines, but it would have been nice to see her star in a set piece or two.
Jackass has outlived many of the critics who decried its 2000 MTV debut and every film they released. Reflecting on their earlier work is relevant at this point, and after spanning more than 25 years in TV and film, the series has earned it.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
