Review: Our favorite crash-test dummies return in ‘Jackass’

Imagine, just for starters, the challenges of monitoring the health of participants in something called the “Vomitron.” I could describe this particular contraption of Johnny Knoxville’s but the name pretty much speaks for itself.

Masks are seen here and there among the crew of “Jackass Forever,” but they seem almost comical when, just a few feet away, someone is being drenched in pig semen or luring a hive of bees to their penis. Exposure isn’t something to be mitigated in “Jackass,” a bruised and fleshy world of saggy tummies, soiled underwear and so, so many testicles. It’s a way of life.

It’s also never seemed a particularly sustainable way of life. Just how many crotch shots can one take? But, more than 20 years after “Jackass” first premiered on MTV in 2000, Knoxville and company, now in their 40s and 50s, are still trying to answer such eternal questions while also pursuing some personal white whales like actually, finally lighting a fart on fire underwater.

“It’s good to have dreams,” someone says.

What began as gonzo stunts carried out with the fearlessness of youth have steadily morphed into a protest against maturity. Knoxville’s hair is now gray (though it sometimes switches in “Jackass Forever” back to dyed black) and the recovery times for Stephen “Steve-O” Glover and Jason “Wee Man” Acuña are presumably longer. One line more or less sums up their predicament: “He’s bleeding. My hairline is receding.”