“Jackass Forever”: wild animals, special effects and other craziness

By Guillermo Azabal

Los Angeles, Feb 2 (EFE).- Eleven years after the last adventure of “Jackass,” which broke viewer records, Johnny Knoxville’s boys are returning with bigger plans and even more crazy stunts in keeping with their iconic slogan and warning: “Don’t try this at home.”

“Jackass Forever” – the fifth installment of the Jackass film series – is coming to the big screen on Friday bringing a huge number of new and crazy tests and hilarious “low blows” among the cast, all of which will make viewers feel like no time has passed for these specialists in engaging in dangerous activities.

It’s a film that will once again surprise the fans who have been following the castmembers since they jumped to television at the end of the 1990s.

“The new one is just as outrageous as the other ones,” said the film’s producer and one of the actors, Johnny Knoxville. “What has changed is that my hair is no longer dark. I have silver hair now, but age didn’t really come into play.”

The series of slapstick reality films based on a surrealistic sense of humor and heavy-handed joke stunts that exceed all the limits of sanity and good sense returns with Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Dave England and Wee Man. In addition, special appearances will be made by assorted well-known entertainers like rapper Machine Gun Kelly and television host Eric Andre.

The film is a 96-minute non-stop amalgam of preposterous stunts where the actors put their endurance and resilience to the test, not to mention the friendship they profess for one another and their capacity for trying to one-up each other with the outrageousness of their stunts.

What hasn’t changed is the number of unexpected blows to the genitals, nude jumping contests over cactus and the cast’s shouts and irreverent scatological remarks.

Bees, scorpions, a bull and even a bear will also be part of the silliness in the new “Jackass” film which features these animals as part of its “main course.”

“They say never work with kids or animals and I think that’s bullshit because working with animals is one of the things we do best, especially animals that hate you,” Knoxville said about some of the scenes where the physical integrity of the actors is put to the test by dealing with wild animals.

Despite the apparent sacrifice in making the film and the “difficulty” in filming a movie like this one, Johnny Knoxville told EFE he feels very “proud” of the project, although it could have cost the actor dearly given that the bull bit him and he suffered a small cerebral hemorrhage.

Knoxville said that it’s rather difficult to film in the way he and the cast do, but he did assure EFE that everything that happens to the actors is “real,” with special effects only being used as a narrative resource during the film’s opening and close.

The actor/producer expressed his desire for viewers to enjoy this new foray into the far reaches of performance insanity, he wants them “to get a laugh” and to forget about the pandemic for a while. And he’s not closing the door to yet another sequel to “Jackass,” saying that right now that’s still “up in the air.”

In this new film by Dickhouse Productions, sponsored by Paramount Pictures and MTV Entertainment, it’s clear that Knoxville is in excellent form at age 50.

In fact, last week he also participated as a contestant in the “Royal Rumble” free-style live professional wrestling event.

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