Jackass 3D

How funny are dildos?

For the moviegoer weighing whether or not to see Jackass 3D, the question is one worth considering. Dildos get fired out of cannons; they hit guys in the face, in slow-motion; and let’s face it, there’s a general aesthetic that dildos suggest, and it applies pretty well to this film. Dildo-absurdism.

Moving on: Jackass 3D is the third film in the long-running Jackass franchise, which includes a television series and, by association, the collection of spin-off programs centered on one or another of the maniac cast. It’s also the first in 3D, which, as it happens, is a medium that might as well have been made with this movie in mind.

It feels almost wrong to structure this review as a narrative, in the same way that it feels almost wrong to call this film a film, which is more misleading than informative. Jackass 3D is really a collection of skits revolving around physical and bodily stunts, sometimes hinging on human excrement, and just as often as on guys getting hit in the nuts. There are animals involved, mostly as tormentors: an angry ram, swarms of bees, a bull that kicks Johnny Knoxville square in the head. Spike Jonze dresses up as a fat woman. Trying to describe what happens in these skits is like trying to paint your dreams—you constantly disbelieve what you’re remembering.

The experience of watching is weirdly postmodern, voyeuristic and anticipatory. Director Jeff Tremaine constantly structures the scenes so that the viewer knows exactly what’s going to happen 15 or 30 seconds in advance of it happening, and this technique draws tension and a strange sense of clairvoyance from the smallest gag. For a substantial portion of the movie, the audience serves the same function as the cast, and the cast the same function as the audience: laughing at their comrades, cringing, yelling in horror.

Other styles Jackass 3D is informed by: skateboard videos; sports-highlight shows; the glorious perversion of instant replay, slowed down and stretched out to a quaaludes’ pace.

In case it’s not apparent, the film is inconsistent. It’s literally inconsistent, in that the jokes are quilted together into a kaleidoscopic whole. The payoff is inconsistent as well: some stunts are hysterical, exhilarating and unbelievable all at once, and others fail completely, being either too disgusting and distasteful or stupid to enjoy.

But that roguish variety is part of the charm, and with such a strong, charismatic and ecstatic cast, Jackass 3D is undeniably and ineffably charming.