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Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005 | ||
What do you think of this story? Bad Links? | Stupid is as stupid does2 stars Here we go again, another television um, classic, retooled and recast for a big screen premiere. This time its The Dukes of Hazzard. Thats right, The General Lee, Boss Hogg, Cletus, Rosco, Uncle Jesse, Bo, Luke, and of course Daisy Duke, plus all the other mental defectives of Hazzard County return to have a wallopin good time for our um, amusement. The goofy 70s TV show was basically Hee Haw with a plot, or more accurately, Hee Haw with car chases. Reset further south this time in good ol Georgia, Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) play it real goony as they make hairpin turns, do endless donuts in the dirt, and propel the General Lee, their beloved orange Dodge Charger over creeks or anything else that will get them air bound. Jessica Simpson fills out Daisy Dukes um, role, with great aplomb. She isnt given much to do except hypnotize officers of the law with her gorgeous body. I guess she must work out a lot at the White Trash Gym. Willie Nelson plays Uncle Jesse. Basically its Willie playing himself. After all, hes not exactly Sir John Gielgud. Mr. Nelson tells a string of off-color jokes in lieu of an actual script. I guess thats supposed to translate into a colorful character. I stupidly left my English to Dumb Cracker dictionary at home. To top off this amazing ensemble cast, is yet another um, actor, Burt Reynolds. This is the man whose idiocy is responsible for such glorious pieces of celluloid as Cannonball Run, Cannonball Run II, and Smokey and the Bandit. All of those movies are in the same vein as The Dukes of Hazzard, with the plot driven by a V-8 engine. Be that as it may, Burts ghastly performance nearly runs this picture into a big tree. He has so little comic ability running across his tightened face, that any mugging he attempts plays more like horror than humor. Reynolds has basically made a career out of smart-mouthed jock attitude. He always seems to be having a good time, usually at the audiences expense. That brings us to the real talent in this film, Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville. These two young actors um, single-handedly save this movie. They both have a real sense of comic timing, utilizing their facial expressions to great effect. Scott especially makes Bo a lovable galoot who might be clueless when it comes to the modern world around him, but his silly innocence plows right through it all. Johnny Knoxville is fast becoming something of a star himself. He was the head jackass in Jackass - The Movie, a series of ill-advised stunts based on the television show of the same name, a docu-comedy that has to be seen to be believed. He went on to star as Ray-Ray Perkins in John Waters sex-comedy, A Dirty Shame, another film that has to be seen to be believed. Hes toned things down a bit as Luke Duke. Still, it gives the moviegoer a chance to see him behave as a near human. Even though Knoxville and Scott give the movie a center, everything around them is just plain bad. The original Boss Hogg, Cletus, and Rosco of the TV show, had more comic ability between them than the whole rest of this cast combined. Theyve taken what are essentially living cartoon characters and tried to flesh them out as real people. That was their first mistake. They should be goofier because stupid white people arent funny unless theyre completely stupid and totally spastic. Once again, Hollywood gets it wrong. As for the General Lee, I can only say that Ive seen enough car chase sequences to last me for a good long while. In fact, the last third of this movie is nothing but car chases. Theres even a Nascar-like race, which is an integral part of a plot involving moonshine, strip-mining and the Dukes farm. Local hero (in Hazzard, anyway) Billy Prickett, is a Dale Earnhardt-like character who offers a few added moments of humor. Too bad he, and the rest of the cast are being dragged behind the vehicle at 90 miles an hour. Of course, the whole premise is not meant to be taken too seriously. Its just good, clean fun. Never mind that most of the town folk are too repulsive to look at. Who cares that moonshine and stills havent had real meaning since the early days of Andy Griffith? Dont try to make sense of it all. It will only make your head pound somethin fierce. Just throw your head back and laugh till you spit out your partial.
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