Move over, “Avatar.” The new pinnacle of 3-D filmmaking has arrived.
“Jackass 3-D,” the third film in the decade-long television and film franchise, brings the series’ familiar gross-out stunts and pranks straight to your face in three dimensions, a first for the “Jackass” brand.
The film kicks off (and also ends) with a Michael Bay-like set piece with fancy choreography, super-slow motion and gags to exploit the 3-D technology. What’s in between, of course, is the usual “Jackass” tomfoolery, complete with an all-out dwarf brawl, consumption of a man’s sweat and penis baseball.
That’s not to say “Jackass 3-D” is simply a bunch of silly pranks. No, that would be too kind. This installment has no qualms testing the limits of your gag reflexes, this time probably more so than its predecessors.
Just try to wrap your head around the phrases “poo cocktail supreme” and “poo-cano.”
Regardless, “Jackass 3-D” is another gut-busting turn for the “Jackass” series. The stunts are more outrageous and the scale is amped. But those aren’t reasons why “Jackass 3-D” succeeds. It succeeds because of the 3-D.
“Jackass 3-D” is a “real” 3-D film, meaning it was actually shot with state-of-the-art 3-D cameras, rather than being shot in 2-D and converted afterward to 3-D. (I’m looking at you, “Clash of the Titans.”)
So yes, this is the same technology behind “Avatar.”
Granted, this isn’t the same 3-D you see in films like “Avatar.” This 3-D isn’t meant to make an alien world seem more rich and palpable. No, this 3-D is totally cheap.
It’s meant to make it seem like every football kicked at someone’s head and every human excretion is coming right at you.
In essence, this 3-D is meant to make you feel like there really is poop hitting you in the face.
But that’s why “Jackass 3-D” succeeds. The film doesn’t try to be high-brow. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, but the “Jackass” crew knows it, and it shows when they do things like take a donkey kick to the crotch.
And that’s funny, especially in 3-D.
An artistic achievement “Jackass 3-D” ain’t, but if you’re down for 90 minutes of pure idiocy and gratuitous acts of defecation by a group of guys that continue to defy Charles Darwin’s life work, this is a 3-D cinematic experience you will likely find unmatched for quite some time.
4/5 stars
