Jackass presents: Mat Hoffman’s Tribute to Evel Knievel. Key words here - Jackass Presents. (*****5/10)
On May 27th, Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing Jackass presents: Mat Hoffma’s Tribute To Evel Knievel. It’s a 45-minute film of Johnny Knoxville yapping about nothing while BMX legend Mat Hoffman gets a bunch of the best stunt guys in the world together to attempt to break some world records. The actual connection to Evel Knievel is dubious at best, but there is a very little bit of decent footage of Evel’s biggest stunts at the beginning of the movie. Then, we get Knoxville doing his I-talk-a-lot thing, as some seriously cool stunts are attempted in a dirt pit somewhere in America. Flying motorbikes, tandem jumps with midgets, funny crashes and painful crashes, and general…well…jackassery.
In the end, it’s 15 minutes of motorbike jumping and cool stuff like that shoehorned into 45 minutes. How is that extra 30 minutes filled? With Johnny Knoxville. Talking. And then trying some stunts himself, injuring himself in the junk…blah blah blah. Have we not seen all that before? Maybe a hundred times? C’mon Knoxville. Just shut up and show us the stunts. And the stunts are truly impressive. Travis Pastrana and Allen Cooke are true daredevils, maniacs with no fear whatsoever, who wax eloquent about Evel Knievel for a brief moment before attempting some death-defying motorbike action. Again, the connection to Evel Knievel is loose at best. He was a stunt guy, they’re stunt guys…you see?
That being said, there is one stunt which is totally worth the price of admission. It is even worth sitting through thirty superfluous minutes of braying Johnny Knoxville. And it’s one that actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the movie. You see, forty minutes of the movie are about motorbike stunts. And five minutes are about skydiving. We get to see Scott Plamer jump out of an airplane, tens of thousands of feet above the ground - without a parachute. He then, in the air, hooks up with another skydiver, attaches himself, and pulls the cord, landing what is not only an impressive stunt, but seemingly a staggeringly stupid one as well. Then it’s back to the motorbikes, but we’re pretty bored of them after seeing this one.