By Hanna Rantala
LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) – Extreme stunt and prankster collective “Jackass” put their body parts on the line one more time in “Jackass: Best and Last,” billed as their fifth and final feature film.
“Oh, it’s it. Stuntmen and milk both have an expiration date, so I feel like it’s time to stop,” said the group’s leader, Johnny Knoxville, attending the movie’s premiere in London on Monday.
“I think we’re older, I don’t know about wiser. We didn’t start with much, nor pick up much along the way. If we did, we wouldn’t get the footage we get,” Knoxville said.
With Jeff Tremaine returning to direct, “Best and Last” mixes new material with unseen moments from the past 25 years and stunts that were previously not allowed to air or did not make the cut.
In new scenes, members of the group are put through their paces in an escape room from hell, an electric balance beam and a prostate exam, and are exposed to bodily harm, genitalia abuse and bodily fluids.
“It’s about half and half, new stuff and old stuff, it’s really sort of our favourite things,” said Tremaine. “You just kind of meet us where we are. We’re getting older, so you got to get prostate exams and colonoscopies, so we played with all that.”
EMOTIONAL SCENES WITH ORIGINAL CAST
Familiar faces including Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius and Jason “Wee Man” Acuna are joined on the screen by a new cast member, Larry the humanoid robot. Ryan Dunn, who died in 2011, and Bam Margera, dismissed from the group in 2020, are featured in the archival footage.
“It was very emotional, especially seeing clips of Ryan,” said Knoxville. “It’s like a biography of our lives, of our adult lives. This movie’s oddly emotional, especially for us.”
The “Jackass” media franchise was created by Knoxville, Tremaine and Spike Jonze in the late 1990s, with the first TV series airing on MTV in October 2000. All four previous “Jackass” films topped the U.S. box office at their release.
“It’s sad that this will be the last ‘Jackass’ movie but we’ll still all be together,” Pontius said. “We’ll make more different stuff together, because it’s very rare that you have this kind of chemistry between people. It would be horrible not to do things with it.”
Knoxville said he had no thoughts or control over the group’s legacy.
“That’s up to everybody else, but I think ultimately, aside from all the stunts and pranks and male nudity, I think it’s about friendship.”
Released by Paramount Pictures, “Jackass: Best and Last” begins its global theatrical rollout on June 25.
(Reporting by Hanna Rantala in London; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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