By Rob. Walton

In 1972's Pink Flamingos, when 300-pound transvestite Divine ate caca fresh from a dog's poop chute, guerilla filmmaker John Waters caught on film a stunt so audacious no studio could ever top it with any high-tech special effects. Well, the bar has been raised (or lowered, depending on how you slice it) in Jackass Number Two, where unspeakable animal fluids are swallowed, human blood is drawn and beverages are ingested through the lower end of the digestive tract. But it's not all "gag" gags: Jackass Number Two is a drunken cocktail of vicious practical jokes, insanely inventive stunts and pure raw nerve. Seconds into this sequel to 2002's Jackass, a snake chomps onto the head of Chris Pontius's penis, which he's disguised as a mouse. Ninety minutes later we've been witness to Johnny Knoxville and crew evading a bucking bull on a teeter-totter, panicked guys trapped in a treacherous beehive limousine, and an anaconda hunt in a ball pit. On the lighter side, Spike Jonze dresses up as an 80-year-old woman, complete with sagging flappers, and meanders through L.A. with an open housecoat. And Johnny Knoxville shuffles through town with pendulous "old man balls" hanging out of his shorts.

As immature and testosterone-saturated as it is, this is no safety-netted Fear Factor. Case in point: Boundless Steve-O shoves a fish hook through his cheek and thrashes around at the end of a fishing line in the Gulf of Mexico as live bait for the swarming hammerheads and mako sharks. (The insane stunt takes on extra gravity in the wake of Steve Irwin's recent passing.) Unlike so many idiotic reality shows, these wildboyz have substance. Unfortunately, the substance is often excrement. Nevertheless, Jackass Number Two is such a beautiful exercise in bad taste it's literally piss-your-pants funny (which would be the least nauseous fluid spilt in this movie). It's only fitting that John Waters himself makes a cameo as a warped magician, making Wee Man disappear in a way that has to be seen to be best appreciated. After seeing Jackass Number Two, the good ol' days of trannies eating crap seem quaint.