TV: The Movie

Let me start out by saying this was much better than I expected. I thought that this would be absolutely terrible, and where it wasn't very good, I was entertained through most of it and a few things actually did make me laugh. My main reason for watching this is my love for the channel surfing films "Amazon Women on the Moon" and "Kentucky Fried Movie". While this was nowhere near as good, it still reminded me of those two films. The basic plot of this one....well there is no plot. It's a bunch of random TV show, commercial and movie parodies made to give you the rush of channel surfing. The major problem is that the movie has way to many sketches featuring "Jackass" stars playing themselves and pretending like they're big celebrities. There are way to many segments featuring (especially) Steve-O as himself. Many of the segments are just too silly, and too many are spoofing reality shows. The budget for the animated segments was obviously nothing so it was hard for this film to seem like a truly authentic channel surf. With that said, I was entertained through most of this. The camera work and direction was good, even though it was pretty much the same no matter what the parody. I laughed at least a few times and overall it's an OK way to kill 86 minutes. But if you want better films, go by my suggestions are rent or buy the two mentioned earlier in my review.

*My favorite segments were Gay Clowns part 1, and Fear Factor: Gang Rape.

My rating: ** out of *****. 86 mins. Rated R for pervasive strong language, nudity, sexuality and drug use.

Has a lot of cool scenes. the concept works very well, but has a very special sense of humor

It's a shame that this is the best the jackass guys could come up with. You gotta figure if Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera aren't in it, it's not worth seeing. They really make the shows and movies fun and worth watching. Of course it's a National Lampoon movie so it's not that great to begin with. I got bored about 10 minutes in waiting for it to be funny and I'm sorry I wasted my time on this pathetic excuse for a movie. I didn't laugh once during the entire thing. It was horrible some of the violence and cruelty it had in it. And they wonder what's wrong with people these days. They are spending time watching movies like this. Maybe next time they will think before making garbage such as this.

While not as bad as "An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn" this is still one of the worst movies I've ever seen and the worst movie I've seen for Direct To Video Month. Even the title is too generic. It's meant to be a parody of TV, but it just comes off as a lengthy montage of rejected sketches from anything. This movie is just plain rude and offensive. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything too good from Steve-O, the star of Jackass. The acting in all of this is horrible. There are some animated parts which are stupid and pointless.

They do a parody of Michael Moore. Literally all they do is make fun of how fat he is. What satire. There's way too many topless women in this movie. It's vulgar and stupid. They try to do a parody of "Girls Gone Wild" but it just looks the same as an actual "Girls Gone Wild" video. There's tons of gratuitous swearing and it's all offensive and mean spirited. There's one scene where a guy on a prank show sticks his head in a dirty toilet. Everyone is just so obnoxious and stupid here.

Danny Trejo appears and I realize that he's one of the most prolific actors in history. I guess it only fits he'd be in a movie as terrible as this. It should have been called Direct To Video: The Movie as it would have made as much sense. It's just random stupid thing after random stupid thing making the whole thing horribly incoherent with not a single laugh among them. There's offensive gay jokes and rape jokes. Oh, and also fat jokes and midget jokes. There is absolutely nothing witty or insightful in any of this and this film is pure and utter trash. National Lampoon, when did you go wrong? 1/2 star

For those who have seen cKy and Jackass, there will be no new surprises with this movie. Around 50% of this film features stunts from ex-Jackass celebrities Steve-O, Wee Man, Chris Pontius and Preston Lacy intermingled with spoofs on popular TV shows such as Fear Factor and Cops. The first thing you realise when watching this film is that it looks cheap. Very cheap. The second thing you realise is that this in not so much a film, but an hour and a half long sketch show with some gags funnier than others. Much of the humour strangely focused on stereotypical Mexican culture and may be offensive to some, but if not, don't worry, the is plenty more to be offended by. The acting is sub-standard. While Steve-O and co. are stuntmen and skaters, they are not actors. This becomes evident in any scene involving Wee man, where he can't seem to deliver a line without a huge grin on his face. Pontius makes a good effort playing Jesus, unfortunately the writing is quite poor so he never has the chance to be really funny. One thing I did feel for this film was Pity. Pity for Steve-O. Its been well documented that Steve-O has had problems with alcohol and drugs, and in and out of rehab, but in this film you are wondering how much is real and how much is scripted. In several scenes it is very apparent he is intoxicated while he destroys his house, his belongings and several body parts. Worse still, the impression is given that this was encouraged by the filmmakers for some easy footage. It soon becomes depressing watching Steve-O slowly destroying himself on screen. The movie is attempting to parody modern day television and the MTV culture, but it turns out that they are just parodying themselves. In fact, one section is named 'The world's most pointless stunts' I can only concur. While I enjoyed Bam Margera's cKy series and Jackass, this offered nothing new. There have been countless spin-offs of the genre, and the material has become very tired. There is only so many clips of a guy throwing himself on a coffee table I can watch before I get bored. Even Steve-O complains he has been short of work. He should take this as a sign and get a job which doesn't involve bodily harm. The shows parodied in the film were very recent, which suggests in about 2 years the subject matter will be pretty dated. Some of the sketches (The Jackass doll sketch most notably) were pretty terrible, but admittedly there were some funny moments. The Mexican 'COPS' spoof was funny, but will probably be seen by some to be racist. 'XXXL,' A spoof on Triple-X starring Preston Lacy did offer some laughs, and is the closest thing to a proper movie that it gets. The only welcome surprise in this film was the appearance of Jason Mewes AKA Jay from the Kevin Smith movie world. But don't expect Smith's sharp comedy writing, again the poor scripting prevents Mewes from really having the chance to shine.

If you like Jackass and are determined to like this too, it is advisable to put your brain on stand-by, and you might come away with a smile on for face.