Shake It Off
My thoughts on Jackass: Best and Last and Supergirl
Over the years, my relationship with the surprisingly durable Jackass franchise, in which Johnny Knoxville and his crew of miscreants perform an array of dangerous stunts and pranks that are either a.) idiotic, b.)disgusting or c.) idiotic and disgusting. I never watched the MTV series and when I saw Jackass: The Movie (2002), I did not laugh once at any of the antics. For reasons that escape my mind, I was somehow inveigled into seeing Jackass Number Two (2006) and inexplicably found myself laughing my head off at gags—no pun intended—not manifestly different from those found in its predecessor. As for Jackass 3D (2010) and Jackass Forever (2022), I have absolutely no memory of whether I saw them or not and while I did see the spinoff Bad Grandpa (2013), which tried putting the usual outrageous gags into more of a Candid Camera-style context, the results were okay but felt at times as if it was trying to ape the success of Borat a few years earlier than in being its own thing. I mention all of this because now we have Jackass: Best and Last, the fifth and what Knoxville claims is the finale of the franchise and if you are looking for a nuanced examination of the film and how it compares to the others, you should probably go elsewhere because I am not the guy for such things. (Think of this as the critical equivalent of the warnings shown at the front of the films admonishing viewers from even thinking about trying to replicate any of the stuff they are about to see on their own.)
Like the previous installments, the film is simply a collection of outrageous stunts and practical jokes, this time combining classic bits rarities from throughout its history along with new bits that show that Knoxville and the crowd are still willing to do pretty much anything within reason (and far beyond) in order to get laughs from audiences and each other—the main difference this time around is that after the more brutally violent bits, the participants are perhaps a bit slower to get back up on their feet than before. I wouldn’t dare reveal the details of the various bits, of course, but this time around, I will say that there are a number of sequences that had me laughing out loud (though a number of them were clips of older bits), some of them were just gross, tedious and repetitive (I probably could have lived with about 34% fewer jokes involving various things entering and/or exiting various rear ends) and there is one bit that I might have deemed to be among the most horrifying and revolting things that I have ever seen on the big screen in a moviegoing career that has encompassed everything from Pink Flamingos to Rock of Ages if I hadn’t literally closed my eyes until I was certain that the film had moved on. Oddly enough, the film actually manages to flirt with a genuine sense of poignance as the group find themselves trying to come to terms with the fact that they are indeed getting too old for this shit, though not before a climactic bit that tries to prove otherwise. While younger viewers who have been raised on people posting videos in which they do stupid stuff may wonder what the big deal is, older viewers (including the guy at the screening I attended who brought his two young children along) may find the laughs tinged with a bit of melancholy, though they will be happy to know that when Jackass Best and Last comes to an end, both the film and the oddballs behind it make sure to go out in a literal blaze of glory that is, like the franchise at its best, simultaneously idiotic and triumphant
.Following up on her brief appearance in the final reels of last summer’s Superman, Supergirl starts off with Kara Zora-El (Milly Alcock), having still not adjusted to the loss of her home planet of Krypton and her relocation on Earth nearly as well as her cousin (David Corenswet), venturing off into deep space with her loyal dog Krypto to spend her 23rd birthday getting blitzed on planets with red suns that lower her invulnerabilities and allow her to feel things that she cannot experience on Earth. Along the way, she crosses paths with Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a young girl whose family was slaughtered by Krem (Matthias Schoenarts), the monstrous leader of a band of intergalactic human traffickers. Determined to kill Krem in revenge for his misdeeds, Ruthye asks Kara for help and while she initially refuses, a confrontation with Krem leaves Krypto clinging to life forces her to reluctantly team up with her so that they can track him down. Along the way, there are plenty of battles with all sorts of extraterrestrial creatures, numerous flashbacks to the various traumas that have made Kara the hard-hearted cynic that she has become, several conversations in which she nevertheless counsels her young charge about the psychological dangers of seeking revenge and occasional drop-ins from another famed DC character, the mercenary antihero Lobo (Jason Momoa).
Having liked the teasing of the character in Superman—indeed, I thought it was the highlight of an otherwise iffy film—I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing her in a vehicle of her own. (If nothing else, it almost had to be better than the previous 1984 screen attempt, in which a chipper Helen Slater battled a beyond-camp Faye Dunaway for control of both a powerful orb and the guy who would later play Ellis in Die Hard.) However, while the film is not nearly as bad as some of the boo birds out there may be suggesting, Supergirl as a whole just does not work, too often feeling like just a bunch of random elements thrown together in the hopes that audiences would be willing to overlook the often slapdash nature of the proceedings. Although adapted from the acclaimed 2021 graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the tale of a traumatized heroine doing battle with human traffickers dealing primarily in young women deemed “brides” ends up coming across as little more than a rehash of the great Mad Max: Fury Road, lacking such things as a compelling narrative, interesting characters (the villain is especially dire and not in a good way) and a director capable of staging both outlandish action beats and quieter character-driven moments with equal skill. (The film was directed by Craig Gillespie, who has done some interesting things in the past like Lars and the Real Girl and I, Tonya but who never quite finds his footing here, especially in regards to the clunky staging of the fight scenes.) The screenplay by Ana Nogueria tries very hard to present itself as edgy but it is only in the same sense that Spencer’s Gifts is edgier than the other stores in the mall—that may be true but it is only of a cosmetic nature that is still ultimately determined to sell you the same shit as everyone else.
Even stranger, for a film about Supergirl, the story seems oddly uninterested in her at times—most of the big dramatic moments revolve around Ruthye and her journey (which is not particularly interesting) and the film also steals focus from her with the occasional and mostly unnecessary appearances from both Superman and Lobo, who seem to be there only in the hopes of not frightening off those who might worry that watching a film revolving solely around a female superhero might give them cooties or something. And yet, even though Supergirl seems strangely determined to avoid focusing on Supergirl, the best thing about it is the performance by Alcock, who brings a lot of fire, wit and attitude to the proceedings, at least during the times when she is given the chance, and even though we can figure out early on that her character will most likely overcome her inner darkness before the end credits kick in, she manages to chart that development in a reasonably convincing manner. She is good enough here that even though I can’t quite recommend that you go out and see Supergirl, there is a part of me that hopes that enough of you disregard that opinion so that a follow-up film gets made with a screenplay more deserving of both the character and the actress playing her.