ABOVE: WATCH THE TRAILER FOR BAD GRANDPA
TORONTO — New in theatres is the comedy Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, a comedy focused on Johnny Knoxville’s familiar Irving Zisman character.
He plays the titular 86-year-old who takes his eight-year-old grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll of last year’s Fun Size) on a road trip to reunite him with Billy’s deadbeat dad (Zia Harris). Along the way they create chaos — and director Jeff Tremaine (Jackass) captures the reactions of passersby.
Will Bad Grandpa lure enough people to open at No. 1 or will Gravity continue to pull audiences into cinemas to top the box office for its fourth consecutive week? Here’s a look at what some of the critics are saying:
“The film has a story complete with a beginning, middle and end. It has some acting and emotion. And most shocking of all — it has empathy,” wrote Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times. “Which may make hard-core Jackass fans — the highly coveted young adult male demo that throws good money at bad entertainment all the time — shudder.”
Sharkey described the movie as “hysterical in the worst possible ways.”
At the New York Times, Neil Genzlinger said Bad Grandpa‘s mix of scripted narrative and found footage works better than it seems it might.”
He wrote: “It’s hard to score big laughs with hidden-camera material these days because there has been so much of it since the Jackass TV show, but Mr. Knoxville and his young sidekick still land a few jaw-droppers. Certainly the contestants at a kiddie beauty pageant they visit near the film’s end will need therapy for years.”
Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times admitted he found himself laughing hard at Bad Grandpa.
“It’s hard not to be amused by the setups,” he wrote.
Still, Zwecker said, the movie is not for everyone.
“Johnny Knoxville and Jackass fans will eat it up,” he said. “For the rest of you? Uh … no.”
In the New York Post, reviewer Kyle Smith was far more dismissive.
“This whole movie is pretty much a mental colon blow,” he wrote.
Several critics singled out the performance of Nicoll.
Perri Nemiroff of Collider agreed.
“Nicoll shines as a kid with an exceptionally smart mouth. There’s a chance the filmmakers could have been feeding him lines, but whether or not that’s the case, Nicoll’s sass and vulgarity is so well delivered and well timed that there’s no denying the kid’s got some serious natural comedic abilities,” wrote Nemiroff.
According to Postmedia News critic Jay Stone, “if the idea of prosthetic testicles strikes you as comic gold, you’re in for a rare treat.”
Stone said “punking” innocent bystanders is “too easy and mean-spirited” and he found these scenes tiresome.
Tim Robey of The Telegraph said Bad Grandpa has things that are “unfunny, indifferently timed, and of dubious value to humanity.”
He added: “True to its origins, Bad Grandpa has no goals whatsoever beyond making you snort with base, moronic glee, but when it scores, it scores.”
Comments