Last night Tara and I attended the Hollywood premiere of Jackass 3-D at Graumann’s Chinese Theater, and, predictably, we laughed our fucking heads off.

With a four-year absence in cinemas since their last outing, the advent of widespread 3-D movie screens has provided some irresistibly low-hanging fruit for the Jackass gang, and unsurprisingly, they went all out with it (bodily fluids, bodily, uh, solids, and projectile dildoes make several star turns). The ante has been upped considerably in this installment. Think you felt the pain before? Trust me, it’s TEN TIMES more visceral when someone gets whacked in the nuts in 3-D. Ten times more painful, ten times grosser and tens times funnier.

Not that they’ve altered their classic crowd-pleasing formula all that much, it’s more that the 3-D technology takes their cartoony Buster Keaton meets Tom & Jerry antics to a different level, not to mention pain threshold. They’ve also grabbed the gross-out factor knob and cranked it (much) higher than ever before. Sure, I’ve felt queasy watching past Jackass shenanigans, but there was one point in Jackass 3-D where I (literally) found myself reaching for the popcorn bag to puke in (I didn’t but it was a very close call). Not that I minded, it’s what I came for, I’m just thankful they didn’t use John Water’s “Odorama” gimmick for this one.

Let there be no doubt, Jackass 3-D is a berserk and hog-wild nihilistic joyride, taking the audience places that they would NEVER, EVER want to visit in real life. The whole 3-D thing normally leaves me cold, but to truly appreciate the genius comedic craftsmanship behind the cheerful insanity of Jackass 3-D, you really do have to see this one in the cinema. I’m already a huge fan, but last night I was continuously wiping the tears of laughter from my 3-D glasses. This film is going to be a huge, huge hit.

Jackass 3-D opens this weekend. It’s already a part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Below an interview I conducted with Johnny Knoxville in 2008.