Jackass Forever review: Lovably dumb and surprisingly resilient, the series soldiers on, and why not?

Some people made sourdough bread. Team Jackass spent the pandemic making bad decisions — for their own amusement, mostly. The squad was already looking worse for wear around the time of 2010's Jackass 3D, a movie you cringed through, and another 12 years hasn't helped. But if Johnny Knoxville's now gone completely gray, lending him a mad-scientist vibe (how many sequels will it be before he doesn't need the old man suit?), he still has his helpless, braying laugh, just as crucial as the onscreen stunts. He's the Martin Scorsese to these lunkheads' Fran Lebowitzes.

After a typically overproduced intro in which the danger doesn't seem real enough, Jackass Forever clicks into a formula more durable than some castmates: shaky-cam raw video loaded with stupid dares and pissed-off animals. The best gags remain the ones that play like mini-poems of unexplained anarchy, like the giant yellow fist that smashes into an innocent skateboarder, the mishap fading to black. Machine Gun Kelly makes a game guest appearance falling into a pool, but mainly this series is about a closed-off camaraderie earned over time and blood spilled.

There's a deeper idea here — really! — and it's one that only gets more obvious with time, something to do with arrested boyhood and the gleeful self-ruination of one's own body. A much younger woman, Rachel Wolfson, a new member, submits her face to some excruciating scorpion-stinging, but her presence throws off the dumb male energy, and she's kept to a minimum. Overall, you should brace for a near-shocking amount of full-frontal nudity (Pam & Tommy has nothing on this), and, equally as essential, a total disregard for personal boundaries. One day, these guys will be doing these pranks in a retirement home, cameras or no. Grade: B

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