`JACKASS' SEQUEL IS BRISK, BEASTLY.

Byline: Brent Simon Correspondent

If ``Know thy audience'' is indeed one of the sacred commandments of entertainment, then perhaps only the amassed squirms and groans of an appreciatively captive audience can do justice to ``Jackass Number Two.''

A follow-up to 2002's willfully crude ``Jackass: The Movie,'' the big-screen spinoff of MTV's show of the same name, this sequel features more of the same serial self-flagellation and juvenile mayhem. In addition to all manner of skateboard and BMX smash-ups, star Johnny Knoxville takes on a bull while blindfolded, while one pal gets branded and another puts a fishing hook through his cheek and uses himself as chum for sharks.

In fact, owing to returning director Jeff Tremaine's experience with the television show ``Wildboyz,'' animals are liberally incorporated into ``Jackass Number Two,'' including anacondas, lobsters, horses and bulls. The best/worst (take your pick) of these bits has one of the crew attaching a leech to his eyeball.

The naked truth

Public nudity, both real and feigned, also figures prominently into the sketches. While the diminutive Jason Acuna, aka Wee Man, walking naked through a business conference may not illuminate much about societal mores, Knoxville and producer Spike Jonze's wrinkly appearances in heavy makeup slyly highlight public discomfort with aged nudity -- just the opposite of the confrontational nature of many of the other skits.

What the movie has going for it, as much as anything else, is briskness of pace. Tremaine keeps things moving so that if a particular bit doesn't grab you, it's only 15 to 90 seconds before you're on to something else.

Some segments hit, some miss, but watching these casually captured shenanigans is, in a sense, refreshing, because it makes us realize how inured we are as an audience to action sequences from all the same, predetermined Hollywood angles.

High art? No, but, like their series predecessors, these high jinks are destined to be swapped as awed recollections at dorm parties for years to come.

JACKASS NUMBER TWO - Two and one half stars

(R: extremely crude and dangerous stunts, sexual content, nudity, language)

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, special appearances by John Waters, Mark Zupan, Tony Hawk, Jay Chandrasekhar.

Director: Jeff Tremaine.

Running time: 1 hr. 32 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: A veritable Whitman's sampler of vulgarity, which works because of its breezy, hopscotch brevity.

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A blindfolded Johnny Knoxville braces for a goring by a bull in ``Jackass Number Two.'' The movie incorporates animals liberally, from lobsters to leeches.