Movie Nut"Jackass: Number Two" Rated: R (for extremely crude humor and dangerous stunts)

I'll be blunt. "Jackass: Number Two" is a film with no socially redeeming value whatsoever. The cast exhibits crass, utterly unacceptable and obnoxious behavior, and we're all paying 10 bucks a seat to witness it. But at least we know what we're getting.

Much like "Jackass: The Motion Picture" (2002) and before it the long-running MTV series "Jackass: Number Two" is little more than a se- ries of sophomoric and star- tling vignettes. These guys perform stunts like seesawing in the middle of a bullring (raising each other above a charging bull-oops, some- times not quite fast enough), cattle branding each other's bare behinds, and locking "one of the bro's" in a room with poisonous snakes . . . just for fun. (And these are the film's least obnoxious stunts. Frankly, some of the segments cross the line of tastelessness into the gross or psychotic. Some are sexual and others involve bodily functions or se- cretions.) These guys will do just about anything on a dare.

I took my wife along to share the experience. She's a highly intelligent, sophisti- cated sort of woman who'll breathe in an expensive glass of wine and say something like, "Ah, a delicate hint of almond, an undercurrent of blackberry." We were prob- ably the oldest in the theater (the overwhelming demo- graphics of this film being male, under 25, and very likely emotionally underdeveloped). But you know what? For much of "Jackass" she and I laughed like crazy. Occasionally we laughed until we cried. We couldn't help ourselves.

Think of this one as a cin- ematic traveling sideshow car- nival-should anybody re- member those days when one could gawk at bearded women or Siamese twins or the carnies who'd bite the heads off live chickens. "Jackass" simply modernizes the concept. Why do they do it? Only Freud knows for sure.

In a nutshell: The fewer brain cells you own, the more you'll enjoy this film. (Me? Hey, it's my job.) Otherwise, if you're even remotely curious, check out one of MTV's numerous reruns. They're far less offensive and just as insane.