Believe it or not, but it's actually been thirteen years since Jackass first debuted on MTV. The show lasted only twenty-four episodes between 2000 and 2001, along with a one-hour special in 2002 that followed the cast during their adventures in the "Gumball 3000" car rally. But it was so popular that it spawned a video game, three movies, spinoffs in the form of Wildboyz and Viva La Bam, and numerous imitators and forgettable wannabes.
I don't know why, but I keep getting it in my head that every movie will be the last we'll see of the Jackass franchise, each of them serving as some kind of grand sendoff. Instead, we've now got ourselves a new movie spinning itself from one of the trilogy's running gags. A Candid Camera-inspired flick titled Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, this spinoff isn't exactly the side-splitting cavalcade of insanity I've come to expect from the Jackass name. It actually feels like a great big letdown, honestly.
Believe it or not, Bad Grandpa marks the first entry into the Jackass franchise that features an actual story. Faced with the death of his wife after nearly five decades of marriage, 86-year-old Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) reacts like anyone would: he's ecstatic. He's finally free to go out and tomcat around like he's always wanted.
A monkey wrench gets thrown into his plans, though, when his daughter gets sent to prison on drug charges and ditches her young son Billy (Jackson Nicoll) with his grandfather despite Irving's protests. He doesn't want some kid keeping him from having the time of his life even if they're family, so Irving gets the wild idea to pawn Billy off on his father.
Billy's father (Greg Harris) is a deadbeat and doesn't want him either, only agreeing when he hears that he can get $600 a month from the government in child support. And thus begins a road trip from Nebraska to North Carolina that sees Irving and Billy causing trouble everywhere they go and bonding a little along the way.
I've been a fan of the Jackass franchise ever since the show began. I enjoyed the show and loved the three movies it inspired, so I was totally looking forward to Bad Grandpa. But to tell you the truth, I left the theater disappointed. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, though. The advertising promised a movie about Johnny Knoxville's old man character from the other Jackass movies, and that's exactly what Bad Grandpa is. I didn't even really like those skits from the other movies, so why would I go into another movie that's expanded the character form three-minute skits to a 90-minute feature film?
Honestly, I thought the entire premise wore itself out in the first fifteen minutes. There are a few genuine laughs to be found here, but most of them are in the commercials. The majority of the movie is corny setup after corny setup. It feels like an entire movie of deleted scenes from the Jackass movies that got cut for not being funny enough. I will give longtime Jackass director Jeff Tremaine credit for at least trying to keep the movie from getting tiresome and keeping each individual scene from wearing out their welcome, but it's a shame that the premise itself does that so quickly.
But the movie does have its ringleaders going for it, right? Well, sorta. Johnny Knoxville commits to his character and the "dirty old man" routine, but despite how funny he is, I had a hard time accepting him as anything other than Knoxville in a ton of makeup. The bloopers that run under the movie's credits even include a moment where Knoxville's young costar tells him, "You still look and sound like Johnny Knoxville." And that pretty much sums that up. The fact that the Jackass show and movies have never had any sort of plot makes it hard to see the movie as something other than a montage of pranks and stunts, so Bad Grandpa adding a plot to it just makes it feel odd.
Knoxville is still really funny, but I don't know if I can say the same for his sidekick. I'm aware that Jackson Nicoll has been getting some praise for his performance here, but for the life of me, I can't see why. He struck me as being way too aware of the cameras, and he doesn't feel like a natural part of the shenanigans. He and Knoxville do have a decent chemistry together, I'll give them that, but Nicoll just didn't come off as being anywhere near as funny as I'd heard he was supposed to be.
And that line could be used to summarize the movie as a whole. It's not as funny as I'd heard it was. But perhaps that's my fault. I went in expecting an ersatz Jackass 4, not realizing that I'd really be getting Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa instead. I wanted to like the movie, I really did. Unfortunately, the movie is just so damn dull that I was more bored than entertained. I often found myself laughing at things that weren't really that funny simply because I wanted something to laugh at. Call me crazy, but I'd rather see Knoxville and his lunatic friends play tetherball with a beehive or zapping each other with stun guns than see a mediocre knockoff of Borat and Brüno starring Irving Zisman and a little boy. More importantly, I just wish Bad Grandpa had been a better movie.
Final Rating: **
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