Man fall down, goes boom: "Jackass 3D" (Metro 05/11/10)

Jackass 3D provides another addition to this year's roster of Flagging Franchises Given a Stereoscopic Shot in the Arm - although, in the case of Johnny Knoxville's gonzo pranksters, invariably cheaper shots also follow to the face, stomach and groinal areas, and as the film has been assembled in much the same shambling, anything-goes fashion as previous Jackasses, the 3D element proves patchy indeed. Still, if you really feel the need to witness shirtless individuals playing swingball with a beehive, it's right here for you. Impromptu dentistry involving a speeding Lamborghini? That's here, too. Sex toys fired from cannons and projectile excrement? Uh-huh. How about a pig snaffling an apple from between a fat dude's buttocks? You got it, plus a novel way of getting your five-a-day.

Putting aside its general resemblance to the kind of yahoo entertainment we'll all be watching come the End of Days, the new film displays the vaguest flickers of visual and narrative inspiration: some blowaway sight gags staged in the wake of a jet's turbine engine, a fiendishly conceived, tripartite prank involving Bam Margera and snakes both plastic and real, an all-midget poolhall skit that suggests it really is a small world after all. Elsewhere, though, the continual reliance on pain as a punchline proves monotonous and wearying, as does the constant soundtrack of the participants' gurgling, demonic, self-amused laughter.

Again, the most telling skit is an attempt to put the wind up Margera's folks, this time with the aid of a lifelike gorilla costume (and Will Oldham as a hapless animal trainer): a decade down the line from the TV series that established the Jackass brand, Knoxville and co. remain big kids, and in any other context, the sight of thirty- and fortysomething Americans egging one another on to do these kinds of things would merit no more than a sorry shake of the head and the tutted one-word verdict "bellends". Good news: the players take so many blows to the 'nads that these self-annihilating genes seem unlikely to be transmitted further - though we might once more spare a thought for those underpaid flunkies and shop assistants obliged to tidy up the messes this millionaire fratboy circus continues to leave behind.

Jackass 3D opens in cinemas nationwide today; a shorter version of this review ran in today's Metro, and can be read here.