Jackass: The Movie - Reception

Reception

Jackass: The Movie received mixed reviews from critics. As of November 2010 on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, 49% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 93 reviews (46 "fresh", 47 "rotten"), and among the "top critics" reviews, 35% of reviews were favorable, with the general consensus being, "There's a good chance you'll be laughing hysterically at one stunt, but getting grossed out by the next one in this big screen version of the controversial MTV show". On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 42 out of 100, based on 14 reviews.

• Ebert & Roeper – Richard Roeper called it the "feel-sick movie of the year" and said the film is "a disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle, but it's also hilarious and provocative. God help me, thumbs up." Ebert gave the film a low rating, but only barely, explaining his rating comes "somewhere between a thumbs down and a sort of 'waving over' recommendation.
• The Austin Chronicle – Kimberly Jones gave the film 3 stars and said the film is the "feature-length rendering of jackass the MTV show, meaning no plot, no script, just wall-to-wall idiocy." Jones said "It's silly, often stomach-churning, but also awfully addictive, inspiring the same kind of vicarious adrenaline rush as Fight Club, with its 'I bleed, therefore I am'; he-man mentality." Jones also remarked, "Consisting of a steady clip of barely minutes-long gags...this piece of outré performance art defies typical movie conventions...but that shouldn't surprise, or even disappoint, anyone lining up for a ticket." Jones wrote "the query 'can I have one for jackass the movie please?' sort of implies you know what you're getting yourself into" and "all told, either you get it or you don't."
• Chicago Tribune – film reporter Mark Caro gave the film 1 star out of 4 and called it "willful idiocy for idiocy's sake." Caro also said "there's one stunt that I bet none of these moronic daredevils would tackle: trying to say something intelligent about Jackass: The Movie." Mark Caro also remarked, "Maybe the best way to look at Jackass: The Movie is as a piece of conceptual art. How far and low will these guys go? What's the pinnacle of pointlessness?" then concluded "I don't like conceptual art."
• Deseret Morning News – Jeff Vice gave the film 1½ stars and said the 80 minute runtime was too much. Vice said the film should have been rated NC-17 and said that many people will find the film to be "possibly the most irresponsible picture ever released by a major film studio."
• Entertainment Weekly – Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B" and said the film "provokes a suspense halfway between comedy and horror. I'm not sure if I enjoyed myself, exactly, but I could hardly wait to see what I'd be appalled by next." Gleiberman also said "In the movie version of the show that might just as well have been called America's Funniest Frat-House Hazing Rituals, the boys engage in infantile Candid Camera grossouts...but mostly, the happy masochistic stunts just keep coming", and also remarked, "it's difficult to reprimand Johnny Knoxville and his crew of merry sick pranksters when their principal pastime consists of dreaming up elaborate new ways to punish themselves."
• Film Journal International – Ethan Alter, who admitted to having never seen an episode of the TV show, said he couldn't say he enjoyed watching it, and said "it would be easy for me to hold Jackass: The Movie up as a leading example of the decline of Western civilization." Alter said he was disturbed by "the film's, and by extension the audience's, cavalier attitude towards pain." Alter went on to say the film "deliberately defies any and all cinematic conventions", "there's no story or characters to analyze", and said "simply put, there's no movie to review here, just a series of blackout scenes you're either going to find supremely funny or incredibly idiotic." Ethan Alter also said the film "may be the most experimental feature ever released by a major Hollywood studio" and also that it "appears to be hailing the birth of a new reality genre: Call it America's Most Sadistic Home-Videos."
• LA Weekly – film critic Paul Malcolm listed Jackass: The Movie as one of the 10 best films of 2002 and also called it the most underrated film of 2002.
• Film Threat – Pete Vonder Haar said the results of "essentially transplanting the show to the big screen" are "incredibly funny and often too disgusting for words." Vonder Haar said "the masochists of Jackass aren't hurting anyone but themselves", "no one is exploiting these guys", and "Knoxville and Co. joyfully sacrifice their bodies for our amusement, and it works." Vonder Haar also remarked "the end result is a collection of some of the best physical comedy since Moe first smacked Curly on the head" and called it "one of the funniest films I've seen all year."
• The Miami Herald – Rene Rodriguez gave the film 2½ stars out of 4 and said "Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of anarchists ran around performing the sort of suicidal stunts parental warnings were invented for" and "the gang also likes to train their sights on the unsuspecting public, Candid Camera style." Rodriguez also said "It is not at all sexist to suggest most women will find Jackass: The Movie as further evidence they are the more intelligent sex" and "As much as I laughed throughout the movie, I cannot mount a cogent defense of the film as entertainment, or even performance art, although the movie does leave you marveling at these guys' superhuman capacity to withstand pain (and their even stranger eagerness to suffer it)."
• New York Post – film critic Lou Lumenick said " plotless collection of moronic stunts is by far the worst movie of the year."
• The New York Times – A.O. Scott said the film "is essentially an extended episode of the popular Jackass MTV series" and that "some of the undertakings, amateurishly recorded on video, are like demented science experiments." Scott said "Jackass the Movie is like a documentary version of Fight Club, shorn of social insight, intellectual pretension and cinematic interest" and also remarked, "Occasionally, there is a flicker of Candid Camera-style conceptual inventiveness, especially in the bits filmed in Japan."
• The Village Voice – Ed Halter said "their feature debut plays like a longer episode of the show" and said "it's funny, as the old saying goes, because it's true." Halter wrote "the structure is ruthlessly efficient: no plot, no characters, no sets, and no downtime—just one sight-gag right after another."
• Scott Foundas of Variety referred to Jackass: The Movie as the first reality film when reviewing The Real Cancun in April 2003.
• In a film critic roundup of 2002 films in The Village Voice, film critic Armond White said "Best Documentary: Jackass, far and away."
• Ed Halter of The Village Voice wrote, "MTV would surely love to claim Jackass as a mutant by-product of its Real World franchise, but its roots lie elsewhere", saying "their self-destructive brand of docu-comedy emerged as a bizarrely elaborate version of a skateboard-video mainstay: slam sections..."
• Jennie Punter of The Globe and Mail said the film "belongs in the too-hot-for-TV direct-to-video/DVD category".