Look, nobody expects a Jackass movie to be high art, but there's something weirdly surreal about watching a bunch of people who have spent more than twenty-five years making bodily harm an art form make one more theatrical stab at it. Johnny Knoxville and his band of self-destructive masochists have leapt, crashed, collided, vomited and generally abused themselves to provide generations of viewers with entertainment. Jackass: Best and Last marks the franchise's supposed final theatrical outing, and the Blu-ray gives the film a solid technical presentation that suits the deliberately varied material.
If you've seen Jackass Forever in 2022, you already know the basic emotional territory of this movie. It's a continuation of that last film's bruised family-reunion atmosphere, with the veterans increasingly aware that they're not quite as indestructible as they used to be. Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Danger Ehren, Dave England, Wee Man, Preston Lacy, Chris Pontius and the rest of the familiar crew remain central to the chaos, while younger performers and newer faces such as Rachel Wolfson, Jasper Dolphin, Poopies and Zach Holmes help carry some of the physical punishment.
Best and Last is also a farewell, of sorts. Rather than pretending there's a grand narrative capable of bringing the Jackass saga to a dramatic conclusion, Jeff Tremaine and the crew continue doing what they've always done: assembling a succession of stunts, pranks, physical-comedy bits, archival material and outtakes and letting the personalities of the performers hold everything together.
The movie runs roughly ninety-two minutes, and Tremaine keeps things moving at a generally steady pace. Very few of us are interested in conventional storytelling here. One stunt gives way to another, often with Knoxville or someone else standing just off camera waiting for the next person to suffer. The simplicity still has some appeal. Jackass has never required elaborate plotting when a bad idea, a willing participant and an unfortunate piece of equipment will do the job.
What sets Best and Last apart from the earlier installments is its awareness that these aren't the same people who were throwing themselves into increasingly ridiculous situations on MTV in the early 2000s. Age, accumulated injuries and the deaths of friends who were part of the Jackass story give the movie a surprisingly reflective undercurrent.
Knoxville in particular feels less like an indestructible stuntman and more like the ringleader of an increasingly battered troupe. His serious head injury during the bull stunt in Jackass Forever hangs over the later material, making some of the older footage feel considerably more reckless in retrospect. He is still willing to participate, but the movie increasingly allows other members of the crew and younger performers to take much of the punishment.
That shift works best when the newer cast members are given room to establish personalities rather than simply being treated as replacement targets. The younger performers bring an energy that keeps the formula from feeling completely fossilized, while the veterans remain essential because of the decades of accumulated relationships, friendships and grudges they have with each other.
The archival material is especially effective. Best and Last isn't simply another collection of new stunts; it also looks back at what the Jackass crew has been doing for roughly a quarter-century. The movie mixes modern material with footage from dramatically different eras, including older clips that can look noticeably softer, noisier and more dated. Seeing that material alongside present-day footage provides a reminder of just how young the performers used to be and gives the movie an unexpectedly bittersweet quality.
That material does occasionally affect the momentum. Jackass works best when it is moving remorselessly from one ridiculous idea to the next, so the reflective passages and archival segments can feel like speed bumps. For longtime fans, however, they're also part of what makes this installment feel like a conclusion rather than simply another sequel.
As a comedy, Best and Last remains unapologetically primitive. There's nothing in the way of pretension about what the audience is here to see. Someone gets hurt, someone laughs, someone makes the situation considerably worse and the cycle begins again. The humor is frequently juvenile by design, but there's an oddly impressive commitment to the bit. After all these years, the cast still understands that the funniest possible response to an absurd situation is often to make it even more absurd.
Paramount presents Jackass: Best and Last on Blu-ray in 1080p high definition using an AVC-encoded transfer with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The presentation is clean and detailed, although visual consistency isn't really the goal. The movie incorporates footage from very different periods, so the contrast between the modern photography and the archival material is unavoidable.
The newer material looks sharp and natural, with convincing skin tones and plenty of detail in faces, clothing, outdoor locations and the inevitable collection of bruises, dirt, sweat and other bodily evidence. Colors are generally strong without looking excessively processed, and contrast is handled well throughout the modern footage.
The archival material is, of course, a different story. Older clips can look soft, noisy or visibly dated compared with the contemporary photography. That's not really a flaw in the transfer; it's an inherent characteristic of the source material and an important part of the movie's retrospective character.
In fact, preserving those differences is preferable to trying to make decades-old footage look artificially pristine. The visual progression from early Jackass material to contemporary high-definition photography effectively reinforces just how much time has passed.
The Blu-ray's primary English soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. It is clean and more than adequate for a movie built primarily around screaming, laughing, music, impacts and increasingly ridiculous noises.
Dialogue remains clear, and the musical selections give the mix plenty of energy. The surround presentation is generally effective, although this isn't an especially aggressive or reference-quality home-theater showcase. Much of the material is naturally centered around voices, laughter and physical comedy rather than elaborate environmental sound design.
The low end gets opportunities to make itself known during crashes, impacts, vehicles and other larger-scale gags, but the overall presentation is better described as energetic and clean than spectacular. That's perfectly appropriate for Jackass. It doesn't need to sound like a prestige drama; it simply needs to make every terrible idea sound appropriately loud.
The Blu-ray includes a deleted-scenes montage running approximately seventeen and a half minutes. As with previous Jackass home-video releases, this is arguably one of the most appealing reasons for longtime fans to own the physical release.
The material consists of additional stunts, alternate material, failed setups and other pieces that didn't make the theatrical cut. Not every discarded idea is a classic, but that's part of the fun. Jackass has always benefited from the sense that the audience is only seeing a fraction of everything that was filmed.
For longtime fans, the extras complement the movie's farewell atmosphere. They're reminders that behind every finished stunt is a mountain of setups, failures, alternate takes and ideas that were ultimately deemed too redundant, too dangerous or simply not funny enough.
The Blu-ray also includes a Digital Copy, giving buyers another convenient way to watch the movie outside the physical disc.
Jackass: Best and Last isn't going to convert anyone who has spent the past twenty-five years wondering why these people keep hurting themselves. For everyone else, however, it is a fitting conclusion.
It isn't quite as purely anarchic as the earliest Jackass material, and its reflective passages and archival footage occasionally interrupt the momentum, but that's also the point. This is a movie made by people who know they're getting older and that the particular combination of personalities that created Jackass can't last forever.
The result is still crude, still painful, still frequently disgusting and still capable of producing the kind of laughter that makes you question your own judgment. More importantly, it feels like a genuine farewell rather than an attempt to manufacture one more sequel simply because the franchise can support it.
For fans who've been along for the ride since the MTV days, that's probably enough. Jackass: Best and Last is available to own today!
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