आलोचक समीक्षाएं

The fourth (and hopefully final, for the sake of its cast) Jackass is a nostalgic laugh riot.

Despite its new failures and familiar assortment of dud stunts (Wee-Man being launched onto a pile of metal is a pretty lame payoff to that musical chairs gag), Jackass Forever inevitably benefits from a stronger emotional undertow than any of the series’ previous films.

“This isn’t a Mensa convention!” says one player. Is that disingenuous? Isn’t there, in fact, some advanced showbiz intelligence and surrealist savvy in the way Jackass is set up and edited? Either way, it has a horror-comedy impact.

As always, what’s so joyously, infectiously funny about “Jackass” is rarely the prank itself, but how funny they all find it to reduce each other to writhing heaps.

Jackass Forever is a hilarious, even genuinely touching reunion of America’s most vulgar performance artists. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel for the series or definitively say goodbye to it, nor does it need to — it’s simply enough to remember that some things never get old.

To see the old-timers pass the torch to their acolytes cements the improbable importance of Jackass in American pop culture.

More casual viewers’ mileage may vary on which stunts are laugh-out-loud funny and which are abjectly horrifying, and the rickety carnival rollercoaster ride works better when the other passengers—whether fellow audience members or the on-camera talent—are screaming and laughing along in equal measure.

It’s the group’s most joyous installment to date, even if the series itself is starting to show some wear and tear.

Knoxville and the others go about their messy business with a glee that is impossibly contagious.

Jackass Forever is a valedictory victory lap for the scruffy little troupe of “stunt” dudes who risk almost certain injury — and certain humiliation — for laughs, lowbrow fame and cold-hard-cash.