SHARING THE PAIN

REVIEWED - JACKASS NUMBER TWOTHE trailer for Jackass Number Two adopts a mock-serious tone, claiming that its predecessor provoked outrage when released in 2002. It intercuts shots of people screaming in horror with some of the most negative reviews the first film received: "a new low", "a plunge into depravity", "a sad commentary on our degenerating culture".

Having taken more than $70 million at the US box-office, Jackass Number Two seems certain to spawn another sequel - perish the thought - so here are some quotes that the producers are welcome to use in their next trailer: disgusting, revolting, tacky . . . and that's just for starters.

The formula remains the same as in the MTV show where the series originated: a succession of short sketches with no linking narrative as the regular team engage in copious exhibitionism, gross stunts and reckless endangerment, suffering in pain while their colleagues fall around laughing.

At least the TV episodes ran for only 30 minutes each. Stretching such flimsy material out to three times that length proves as punishing for the audience to watch as the stunts are for the performers to undergo on screen, and in the cinema the only escape is the exit.

Very tempting as that prospect was, a rigorous sense of duty kept me there until the inevitable out-takes rolled over the closing credits. I will admit to looking away from one scene in which Steve-O, the most masochistic of the group, has a leech inserted inside his left eyeball. That comes shortly after he painfully installs a fishhook inside his mouth and pushes it through his face.

Clearly, there is an audience that is more receptive to this material: people who will enjoy watching grown men enact the most juvenile of pranks. Several characters are locked inside a limousine that's filled with stinging bees. Bam Margera, who doubles as a co-producer, has his backside branded with a hot iron and imprinted with a phallic symbol.

Some of the routines revive the old Candid Camera device of set-ups designed to startle unsuspecting onlookers. Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze does a cameo in drag, losing his dress several times in public places to reveal fake sagging breasts underneath. And the star of the series, Johnny Knoxville, is disguised as an elderly man encouraging a young boy, posing as his grandson, to smoke, drink and swear at an outdoor diner.

The movie offers a profusion of gags to make the audience gag in their seats. One of the team drinks a jar of semen extracted from a stallion. Another is preparing to pose as a Middle East terrorist and his colleagues shave their pubic hair to form a fake beard that's glued to his face. Then there's the episode titled The Fart Mask, on which I won't elaborate.

The film's agenda is dictated by achieving maximum shock value, without a hint of wit, or even a point to it. There are far more laughs in any five minutes of Borat than in the entire, dispiriting second coming of Jackass.