Action Point attempts—and fails—to be entertaining
Between 1978 and 1996, Action Park was a popular tourist destination in Vernon, New Jersey. For those unfamiliar, the amusement park was notoriously dangerous and during the park’s tenure six people died from injuries sustained on the rides. Injuries were so numerous the local emergency room had to purchase additional ambulances to keep up.
Nicknamed “Traction Park,” stories of underage workers, drunken guests, and insanely unsafe rides are common online, as former guests recount their favorite memories of nearly dying in their early years.
Action Park is a story ripe for the Hollywood treatment. Johnny Knoxville, Jackass star and human scar tissue, is the perfect person to recreate the atmosphere. And yet, a despite faithful recreation of the ill-advised attractions, Action Point, the new comedy inspired by Action Park, just isn’t very good.
The reasons for this are myriad: paint-by-numbers story, ‘90s style gross out gags, one note characters or no note characters, relatively tame stunts considering the cast involved, an unfocused script, etc. There were likely lots of broken bones that accompanied the making of this film—it’s a shame that they were sacrificed for such a poor result. Action Point is boring most of the time, which is highly unusual for the Jackass crew.
Much of the problem can be attributed to the story. Knoxville isn’t known for his strong writing skills. So while he has a story credit for this film, alongside a two writers with lots of television episodes for Mike Judge vehicles under their belt, doesn’t do much that isn’t excepted.
The three make Action Point a frame story told by a grandfather to his granddaughter. 95 percent of the movie takes place in the sepia-tinted late seventies and early eighties, so the frame device is only an excuse to put Knoxville in his beloved old man make-up. It serves no other purpose and is only part of what makes the film so unfocused.
In the story proper, audiences are given introductions to the cast through Knoxville’s descriptions, although most of the characters are given absolutely nothing to do beyond laughing at people falling down. Jackass costar Chris Pontius also stars in this film as a weird, medication stealing, hatchet-wielding goofball, but having strange mannerisms isn’t the same thing as having a personality.
The story is about Knoxville’s character D.C., owner of Action Point, who has invited his quasi-estranged daughter to California for the summer. The park is run-down and in debt, features no rules or safety equipment, and serves cheap beer all day long.
In general, the plot is in place to set-up stunts for the cast to do. Knoxville fares the worst by far, likely because the studio wouldn’t insure the other actors to participate. The stunts, unfortunately, are not up to the typical Jackass snuff. Knoxville is 47 years old. It’s unlikely that he can physically do the insane things that he’s known for, no matter how willing he is to try. At a certain point, the body is going to stay broken.
The film tries to recreate attractions like the alpine slide (which in the actual park had two speeds: slow and “death awaits”), the Cannonball Loop (a water slide with a 360 degree loop at the end, said to cause decapitations in the mannequins that were sent through during tests), and the Battle Action Tanks (tennis ball shooting monsters used to terrorize employees who had to venture into the ride to fix them). They do a decent job, too.
However, for reasons that are completely understandable, only the alpine slide is used extensively in stunts and the results probably felt a lot worse than they looked.
Beyond this, the film is a slog. The jokes are flat and not particularly clever. A drunk bear isn’t just not as funny as the filmmakers think it is. Action Point is 84 minutes long and most of it is spent waiting for something to interesting to happen. It almost never does.
To be fair, I think there might have been a good movie here. It’s just that the filmmakers never found it. I could see an Animal House, National Lampoon style movie waiting somewhere off camera. No one went looking for it.
As it is, Action Point simply isn’t worth the price of admission.