Jackass 3

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, Preston Lacy, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey, Spike Jonze, Rip Taylor, Seann William Scott (cameo)
Directed by: Jeff Tremaine
Rating: R
Comedy, Documentary
2010

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Johnny Knoxville and his friends return to the big screen for a third time to perform a series of dangerous stunts and disgusting gags.

Review:

Tim: First off, I refuse to call this movie by the name it was released, which would be Jackass 3D. I hate the trend of having "3D" appear in a movie title. It should never be present. I'm glad the DVD dropped the "D", because like many people, I didn't see the film in 3D. Anyway, after the surprisingly good Jackass Number Two, I admit I was interested and bit excited to see how the third film would be. I imagined there would be more of the same, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is the rare franchise where you don't necessarily need a whole lot of new features, as long as there are interesting twists on the stunts we're come to expect from the Jackass gang.

What's funny is that the 3D aspect actually hurts the overall quality of the film. A ridiculous amount of this movie was filmed in slow motion. That might have looked cool in 3D, but it gets really, really annoying. It felt like the producers and director Jeff Tremaine just found out you could film things in slow motion, and decided to use it for an absurdly high number of stunts. Slow motion is definitely cool and it absolutely adds to some of the gags here, but it's way, way overused. We don't need to see Bam do four or five Rocky stunts. We get it after two. I really wish this had been cut out some, because the slow motion drags the film down.

Besides a few great sketches, the movie just features too many lackluster stunts. These weren't exactly bad, but there didn't do much to impress me. We have the disgusting (the volcano), the stupid (the gorilla in the hotel was just lame), and some stunts that are redundant (did we really need to see Johnny Knoxville and the buffalo when it was so similar to the bull?). I said that the Jackass guys didn't need to change the formula up too much, but I did want to see a little more creativity and originality in the stunts.

Now, there were a few scenes that were incredible. The highlight for me was probably the jet engine. It was so crazy to see the engine blasting people back. I loved when they threw the football and other objects in the jet stream. That was original, cool, and very fun to watch. I loved those moments. There are a number of other funny moments- Steve-O's portapotty filled with dog crap is certainly memorable. I would have liked this movie more if they had a few more strong stunts and few less of the weaker ones.

As such, this movie decreases a bit in quality from the second film, and is more on par with the original. I admit I laughed a few times throughout the film, and felt like it was mostly enjoyable. However, too many of the stunts just seemed either stupid or redundant. I thought the movie was okay, but there's not much to be excited about here. I think it's time to end the franchise before it gets any worse.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Jackass: The Movie, Jackass Number Two