The JACKASS pranksters are at it again in this third outing, presented for the first time in 3D -- an effect that will no doubt redefine the use of the in-your-face technology. Once again Jeff Tremaine returns to direct the MTV Films/Paramount Pictures production. - skip ad -   Genres: Comedy, Documentary, Adaptation and Sequel Running Time: 94 hr. Release Date: October 15th, 2010 (wide) Distributor: Paramount Pictures Cast And Credits Starring: Johnny Knoxville Directed by: Jeff Tremaine Produced by: Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze

It just might be that America’s favorite jackasses, having played around with sharks in their last big-screen effort (“Jackass Number Two” of course), have this time actually jumped one, and in 3-D no less. As aficionados of their previous feature-length compilations of gags and giggles have come to know, there is a certain, sometimes inexplicable, queasy pleasure to be had from watching Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius and the rest of these MTV-sponsored merry buffoons wreak semi-havoc on one another, themselves and an occasional rattled and confused onlookers (the two-legged variety, especially). But alas there are only so many times you can slurp from the same fetid well, or at least make like Krakatoa and blow.

Like the previous movies, this new collection of yuks and yucks was directed by Jeff Tremaine (who created the series with Mr. Knoxville and the director Spike Jonze) and consists of slapped-together stunts and skits of varying ambition and impact, in three generally unmemorable dimensions. The funniest moments are often the simplest, though nothing approaches the conceptual purity from the first movie of Steve-O jumping on a trampoline to hit his head on a whirling ceiling fan. In similar fashion, the crew repeats itself, sometimes by recycling older funny and less-so routines: Mr. Pontius dons a bikini and takes it off, and Wee Man (Jason Acuña) walks into a bar with some other little people and leaves everyone agape.

At times Mr. Knoxville and his pals seem to be exploring, with degrees of knowing and naïveté, some of the same surrealist terrain described by Luis Buñuel in his memoir, “My Last Sigh.” (Although in truth only Mr. Jonze, who shows up in a fat suit and under a schmear of latex, seems genuinely knowing.) Buñuel extolled Surrealism partly for its “aggressive morality based on the complete rejection of all existing values”. The Surrealists were responding to church and state, among other forces, while here the guys are reacting to, well, someone sticking something in the nearest hole. But the men’s raucously playful, uninhibited and affectionate engagement with one another’s habitually unclothed bodies can seem like a spit in the face (and elsewhere) to the outside world’s homophobia.

If only there was more to laugh at and with in the movie, which reaches its apogee in the opening and closing credit sequences that show the artfully arranged men being assaulted in transfixing slow motion, their heads stretching like rubber as another projectile finds its mark. The end credits also include text stating that some of the scenes with animals in the movie were monitored by the American Humane Association, and that none of those animals were harmed, which suggests that the unmonitored ones didn’t get off as easy. On its Web site, americanhumane.org, the association states that “due to late notification or limited resources, American Humane Association did not monitor any of the parrot or ram action or some of the dog, snake and scorpion action.” The parrot looked fine. The ram looked mad.

“Jackass 3D” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Clothed, semi-naked and naked adult men, all apparently stuck in what Freud termed the anal, oral and phallic stages of development.