Words by Gabe Durham//Illustration by Josh Frankel

At the 11:00 show on opening night, the theatre was packed full of loud, sweaty men, aged 18-to-35, and boys who convinced the men to pretend to be their guardians. The air was so thick with testosterone, I could have sworn it was Super Bowl Sunday. The gathering was the kind of niche market advertisers dream about: Where else but at a Jackass movie can you cram into one room a couple hundred guys who will shell out $10 to see a man drinking horse semen?

You’ve got to hand it to the Jackass guys, they’ve got an eye for parallel structure: At the beginning, they say, “Don’t try any of the stunts you’re about to see,” and at the end, they say, “Seriously, don’t try any of the stunts you just saw.” It comes full circle.

In between, they spend an hour and a half proving how necessary those warnings are. Plot-wise, “Jackass: Number Two” is a handful of guys, coming up with elaborate ways to maim each other and maim themselves: a high-budget pissing contest.

Yet, at some point in the movie, each man proves an incredible threshold for pain and/or nausea. Bam Margera allows himself to be branded four times with a penis-shaped hot iron, Johnny Knoxville rides a second homemade rocket over a lake after the first rocket explodes and nearly mutilates him, and Steve-O sticks a large fishhook through his cheek and goes swimming in shark-infested water, getting so close to the sharks that he accidentally kicks one in the head. Whether they’re idiotic or commendable, the Jackass guys have solidified themselves as the great daredevils of our generation.

Is it any wonder that these guys are skaters? To be the best, a professional skateboarder has to sacrifice his comfort and safety. It’s not a question of whether you’ll break something, it’s a question of when. The higher the risk, the better the trick. These guys have transferred that ethic into stunts in a way that used to be reserved for circus performers.

Jackass creates the euphoria of the cool crowd finally letting you hang out with them and the dread of realizing that you could never really be one of them. Plus, you get to relive all the stupid childhood stunts you and your friends ever pulled. Suddenly, I’m back in Clayton’s backyard, watching him burn a dead squirrel with a makeshift aerosol blowtorch, hoping he doesn’t set me on fire, knowing he might.

The gross parts get old pretty fast, though. While eating horse excrement takes daring, it takes zero creativity. The funniest skits are the ones with the best premises. Early on, cast members are tricked, one by one, into reading a fake sexy fan note, then they are punched in the face by a cartoonish spring-propelled boxing glove. Towards the end, Ehren McGhehey gets into a taxi, pretending to be a terrorist, but the rest of the guys turn the joke on him when the cab driver turns out to be the director of “Super Troopers”. At one point, a cast member turns to the camera and announces that this is the greatest skit in the movie, and he’s right. So why didn’t they work a little harder and come up with more high-concept scenes so they could leave “The Fart Mask” out of it?

One low road that they didn’t take involves Wee Man, the little guy. So often in male comedy, little people exist solely for the purposes of, “Look, a midget!” In the Jackass series, Wee Man is clearly a member of the gang, and his existence in the group is justified by his being able to do things other guys can’t do. When he jumps off a bridge while attached to Preston Lacy, it’s the size difference that makes the stunt work.

Also, the movie is devoid of gratuitous sex. There are plenty of naked men, because as a rule, naked men are funny. But in a comedy culture where strippers have become obligatory, these guys understand that anything involving sexy women is time that could be spent riding a rocket-bike off a dock.

Maybe it’s telling that I’m looking for lines that this movie didn’t cross, but come on, Daytrotter fans, do you really need me to tell you whether or not to see this movie? What could possibly be left to warn the public about a second Jackass movie? It’s gross. It’s mindless. It’s profane. If your six-year-old sees it, he might accidentally kill somebody. Nothing you don’t already know.

Sitting alongside my howling brothers, I laughed often—always with my gut, never with my brain, and sometimes only because I wanted to fit in. The movie gets a Purple Heart for Bravery/Injury in the Field of Idiocy, and I declare Steve-O winner of the pissing contest.