The film features most of the original Jackass cast, including leader Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Steve-O, Dave England, Ryan Dunn, Jason "Wee Man" Acuña, Preston Lacy and Ehren McGhehey.

However, the most notable stunts and pranks include: Johnny Knoxville getting flipped over, and subsequently being knocked out, in a golf cart; Steve-O snorting wasabi mixed with soy sauce; Bam Margera pranking his mother April by planting a live alligator in her kitchen; Chris Pontius dancing in public as his character "Party Boy" while wearing nothing but a thong; Ryan Dunn fighting against female Japanese kickboxing champion Naoko Kumagai; Ehren McGhehey eating a snow cone made from his own urine; Wee Man wreaking havoc around Japan in a giant traffic cone; Preston Lacy sitting on a bench which is rigged to collapse, thus ripping his pants and exposing his buttocks to unsuspecting bystanders; and Dave England defecating in a display toilet at a hardware store after uncontrollably defecating in his pants in a van.

This is followed by a scene of Johnny Knoxville being launched into a lake via catapult (The end result of a failed Rube Goldberg test), where comedian Rip Taylor closes the film.

[3] Bits that were filmed, but were ultimately cut from the theatrical and home media releases include Gene LeBell choking the cast out one by one; Ryan Dunn getting sprayed by bear mace in the face by Bam Margera; Wee Man skating while being dressed as a penis; Preston Lacy getting "fat fuck" trimmed in his hair by cinematographer Dimitry Elyashkevich with hair clippers; Dave England posing as a caricature sketch artist to draw inappropriate drawings; Steve-O pouring beer in his anus with a garden hose (which was later retooled and redone in Jackass Number Two as the "Butt Chug"); Chris Pontius and Dave England putting a bicycle lock around a crew member's neck; and Ehren McGhehey, Ryan Dunn, Chris Pontius, and Mat Hoffman wakeboarding with BMXs attached to the wakeboards.

Dave England uploaded the caricature sketch artist bit on his YouTube channel, but it was removed for violating the community guidelines.

The original plan for the "Butt X-Ray" stunt was for someone to insert a cellphone up their anus and then receive a call, but it was later changed to a toy car.

A scene that was planned but never got filmed due to financial reasons was a stunt in which Chris Pontius would dress up as the devil and go to a Pentecostal church where they handle live snakes.

The original ending for the film was supposed to be a Rube Goldberg-type contraption, with each of the cast members performing a stunt that either has something to do with what they did on the show (for example, the first stunt would have Preston Lacy as "The Human Wrecking Ball", knocking him into a Port-A-Potty), or simply for a sight gag (such as Ehren McGhehey being knocked over in the Port-A-Potty and landing on a bed of toilet paper rolls), ending with Johnny Knoxville being launched off the catapult next to Rip Taylor.

The skit involves all of the performers in "old man" costumes running around in exploding buildings and sheds, as well as other hazards, only Steve-O surviving to proclaim "Yeah, dude!".

The website's critics consensus reads, "There's a good chance you'll be laughing hysterically at one stunt, but getting grossed out by the next one in this big screen version of the controversial MTV show.

[9] The Austin Chronicle's Kimberly Jones gave the film 3 stars and said it is the "feature-length rendering of jackass the MTV show, meaning no plot, no script, just wall-to-wall idiocy."

Jones said "It's silly, often stomach-churning, but also awfully addictive, inspiring the same kind of vicarious adrenaline rush as Fight Club, with its 'I bleed, therefore I am'; he-man mentality."

Gleiberman also said "In the movie version of the show that might just as well have been called America's Funniest Frat-House Hazing Rituals, the boys engage in infantile Candid Camera grossouts..."[13] Film Journal International's Ethan Alter, who admitted to having never seen an episode of the TV show, said "it would be easy for me to hold Jackass: The Movie up as a leading example of the decline of Western civilization."

[15] Film Threat's Pete Vonder Haar said the results of "essentially transplanting the show to the big screen" are "incredibly funny and often too disgusting for words.

"[16] The Miami Herald's Rene Rodriguez gave the film 2½ stars out of 4 and said "Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of anarchists ran around performing the sort of suicidal stunts parental warnings were invented for" and "the gang also likes to train their sights on the unsuspecting public, Candid Camera style.

Scott said it "is essentially an extended episode of the popular Jackass MTV series" and that "some of the undertakings, amateurishly recorded on video, are like demented science experiments."

Scott said "Jackass the Movie is like a documentary version of Fight Club, shorn of social insight, intellectual pretension and cinematic interest".

[18] The Village Voice's Ed Halter said "their feature debut plays like a longer episode of the show" and said "it's funny, as the old saying goes, because it's true."

"[21] Ed Halter of The Village Voice wrote, "MTV would surely love to claim Jackass as a mutant by-product of its Real World franchise, but its roots lie elsewhere", saying "their self-destructive brand of docu-comedy emerged as a bizarrely elaborate version of a skateboard-video mainstay: slam sections..."[19] Jennie Punter of The Globe and Mail said the film "belongs in the too-hot-for-TV direct-to-video/DVD category".