Once the largely inept and uncouth cast shuts the heckup (i.e. stops trying to act) and starts burnin' rubber and wreckin' cars,there's some good ol' fun to be had in the slipshod big-screen rehash of"The Dukes of Hazzard." But the first hour of the movie is a punishing parade ofprotracted establishing, colorless characters and painful performancesthat make the picture's amusingly harebrained TV inspiration look likesophisticated action-comedy by comparison.
Seann William Scott (Stiffler from "AmericanPie") and Johnny Knoxville (MTV's "Jackass")play moonshine-running country cousins Bo and Luke Duke -- although theyhave little in common with the sexy charmers in cowboy hats and sparklingsmiles created so charismatically by John Schneider and Tom Wopat in 1979.Scott and Knoxville have re-imagined the characters as the Appalachianequivalent of frat boys, and their acting consists mostly of screaming"woo-hoo!" as they drive around dirt roads at 80 mph.
But at least these two are good for the occasional lowbrowlaugh. Candy-pop "singer" and professional celebrity JessicaSimpson steps into Catherine Bach's butt-hugging cut-off Levi's as sexpotkin Daisy Duke, and she's such a catastrophe as an actress that every timeshe opens her Barbie-doll mouth, just her fake Georgia drawl is enoughto make your ears bleed -- never mind her fumbling dialogue. Knowing whereher assets lie, writer-director Jay Chandrasekhar ("Club Dread,""Super Troopers") does his best to keep Simpson as silent andscantily clad as possible. But even in a bikini, she seems rigid and plastic.
Continue reading: The Dukes Of Hazzard Review
