If it’s fair to chide “Jackass the Movie” as an extended episode of the MTV show, then it’s fair to point out that “Action Point,” effectively a spinoff of that series, is a lazy summer romp in the “Meatballs” tradition with a handful of “Jackass”-style stunts as the scantiest of hooks.
True, Johnny Knoxville gets power-hosed down a slide and catapulted into a barn for our amusement, but the inventive, stake-raising, borderline surrealist gags of the old “Jackass” are gone. Now in their 40s, Mr. Knoxville and Chris Pontius, the troupe’s other returning member, have endured so much above- and below-the-belt trauma that it’s only natural for them to want to (mostly) coast through a lame father-daughter bonding plot. But neither is it much fun to see them upstaged by a beer-guzzling bear.
We’re not really watching to see whether Mr. Knoxville’s character, D.C., will take his daughter (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) to a Clash concert, or whether a corporate weasel (Dan Bakkedahl) will acquire the decrepit amusement park that D.C. owns and elects to make more dangerous to raise cash.
True, Johnny Knoxville gets power-hosed down a slide and catapulted into a barn for our amusement, but the inventive, stake-raising, borderline surrealist gags of the old “Jackass” are gone. Now in their 40s, Mr. Knoxville and Chris Pontius, the troupe’s other returning member, have endured so much above- and below-the-belt trauma that it’s only natural for them to want to (mostly) coast through a lame father-daughter bonding plot. But neither is it much fun to see them upstaged by a beer-guzzling bear.
We’re not really watching to see whether Mr. Knoxville’s character, D.C., will take his daughter (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) to a Clash concert, or whether a corporate weasel (Dan Bakkedahl) will acquire the decrepit amusement park that D.C. owns and elects to make more dangerous to raise cash.
