As individuals, we can be both our harshest critics and our greatest champions, depending on what the situation calls for. Jackass Forever’s Steve-O has experienced both sides of that coin in the run up to the franchise’s big legacy-quel. While the actor/daredevil was initially apprehensive about returning over a decade after Jackass 3-D, he truly feels that this new entry is ‘ridiculously good.’ But even with that enthusiastic promotion, there’s still another movie he claims to be the series’ true masterpiece.
Talking with the ReelBlend podcast for this week’s episode, the original Jackass cast member reflected on influential cinematic experiences on the whole. While going over the experiences that he found were essential to his own movie watching history, he actually took the opportunity to share what he felt was the true masterpiece of MTV and Paramount’s cinematic odes to misadventure. Above all other entries, Steve-O mentioned which Jackass baby was his favorite child:
Jackass Number Two was the masterpiece. So I’m not saying that Jackass Forever can compete with Jackass Number Two, but in its own way, it’s the best work we’ve ever done. It’s different, and it is ridiculously good. I went to go see an early screening of it, and my shit just straight hurt from laughing. It’s crazy, dude. I’m so happy with it.
Jackass Number Two is a hard act to follow, and certainly a difficult choice to argue against when it comes to the best in the run. The 2006 follow-up to Jackass: The Movie raised the bar on the sorts of antics Johnny Knoxville and the crew were pulling, some of which felt like practice runs for the stuff that Jackass 4 is about to unleash on the world. Topping it all off with an unexpected musical number, it was a sequel that played to its strengths and found some exciting ways to innovate.
While the first film may have been a bit of an unknown quantity, so much so that Paramount only ever "bought" Jackass: The Movie after it was completed, Jackass Number Two was what proved the series was a cinematic player. As he spoke about his own history going to the movies, it’s similarly unsurprising that Steve-O mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, and Rocky III among the movies that still hold places in his heart.
That being said, there’s a special something that he admits those blockbuster titans were lacking as communal experiences; and it’s something that the Jackass franchise has always delivered. Continuing to praise this latest entry, on top of the overall run of movies, Steve-O nailed down what helped the MTV series transition to the big screen. And as he describes below, there’s only one other genre of film that seems to inspire the same sort of reactions you’d see when watching something like Jackass Forever:
None of those are really as gasp inducing. Maybe there’s some kind of a horror movie where the whole crowd screams together. But Jackass is just a full blown roller coaster. … I genuinely believe that, and I never said that about [Jackass 3-D.] The last one was so wildly, commercially successful; but I just thought it paled in comparison to its predecessor.
Thinking back to theatrical experiences in both the horror genre and this particular canon of risky stunts and painful practical jokes, that comparison tracks. As an example, watching the most brutal moments from Halloween Kills can be just as shocking as some of the worst injuries suffered by Steve-O during his career. Not to mention, there’s always those moments of comedic relief that endear you to the character’s you’re watching get somewhat massacred on screen.
Years down the line, it would be interesting to see how both the cast members and fans of this new Jackass adventure, and the upgraded version it'll release to home video, compare the film to the classic entries. Though the pressure is high to produce a good sequel after so much time has passed, all signs seem to point towards the fourth outing being something truly special. Should that be true, the gasps and the laughs will be as sharp as ever.
Stunts and shenanigans reign supreme with Jackass Forever, which makes its public debut this weekend. Die hard fans will want to get their tickets for Thursday’s early screenings, as those first shows are being promoted as a “fan event” with extra content. We’re still pretty early in the 2022 movie schedule, and if you take a look at the full picture, you’ll see that there’s even more where this came from headed to a theater near you.
