{"id":9462,"date":"2018-06-01T20:46:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T00:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=9462"},"modified":"2019-01-12T14:46:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T19:46:46","slug":"review-action-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-action-point\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: <i>Action Point<\/i> Better Than Kick in Balls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If the absence of Johnny Knoxville&#8217;s <em>Jackass<\/em>\u00a0has left a concussion-shaped hole in your life, it may be partially filled by <em>Action Point<\/em>, a juvenile comedy with Knoxville as the owner of a rickety amusement park who tries to compete with a fancy new park by embracing what makes his unique and removing all the safety measures.<\/p>\n<p>Set in the summer of 1979, it&#8217;s a fond tribute to the child endangerment of yesteryear, with outtakes at the end to remind you not to try this at home. Knoxville plays D.C. Carver, a divorced, irresponsible goof who runs the waterslides, go-kart tracks, and related diversions of Action Point with his numbskull friends (including Benny, played by <em>Jackass<\/em>\u00a0cohort Chris Pontius). A stuffy realtor (Dan Bakkedahl) comes sniffing around looking to buy the park, giving D.C. and the gang a suit-wearing grown-up to ridicule while they hustle to drum up business and save the place.<\/p>\n<p>D.C.&#8217;s 14-year-old daughter, Boogie (Eleanor Worthington Cox), is here for the summer, enjoying his shenanigans as always but considering letting her mom&#8217;s new boyfriend become her legal guardian. The movie is only half-heartedly interested in such things, though. The important thing is for D.C., Benny, and the others to play pranks on each other, to harass wildlife (they want to build a petting zoo), and to engage in absurd stunts for their own amusement.<\/p>\n<p>All of which is fine as far as it goes. Conceived by Knoxville, <em>Jackass<\/em>\u00a0producer Derek Freda, Mike Judge, and Judge collaborators John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, the pleasantly anarchic film always makes it clear that Knoxville&#8217;s doing his own stunts, lest we forget the movie&#8217;s real purpose. There are solid laughs in the slapstick, made merrier by the knowledge that there&#8217;s no in-story reason for any of it. The dialogue is only occasionally funny (&#8220;What a day! We ran out of beer, corndogs, and toilet paper, in that order&#8221;), but it&#8217;s cheerful.<\/p>\n<p>Still, you have to wonder: Why not just make another <em>Jackass<\/em>\u00a0movie? The thin plot that holds A<em>ction Point<\/em>\u00a0together is only barely doing its job, and the movie &#8212; 78 minutes without the credits and framed by present-day elderly D.C. telling the story to his granddaughter &#8212; is as slipshod as the park.<\/p>\n<h3>Grade: <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">C+<\/span><\/h3>\n<h5><em>1 hr., 24 min.; rated R for\u00a0crude sexual content, language, drug use, teen drinking, and brief graphic nudity<\/em><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<div><em>Join our <a href=\"http:\/\/crookedmarquee.us16.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=dc6679cd997ec610eeaf50562&amp;id=db71dbf4c3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mailing list<\/a>! Follow us on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CrookedMarquee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a>! Like us on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/crookedmarquee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>! <a href=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/writers-guidelines\/\">Write<\/a>\u00a0for us!<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the absence of Johnny Knoxville&#8217;s Jackass\u00a0has left a concussion-shaped hole in your life, it may be partially filled by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":9463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}