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'The Dukes of Hazzard' deserves a big 'yeeee-haaaww!'

Let's get this out of the way first.

Watching the reborn "Dukes of Hazzard," I counted four explosions, cars went airborne more than a dozen times (including eight times for the General Lee), there were at least a half-dozen completely gratuitous shots of Jessica Simpson's body and various folks said "yeeeee-haaaaww" 13 times (well, actually, I lost count).

Warner Brothers Pictures 'The Dukes of Hazzard' 3 out of 5 stars Director: Jay Chandrasekhar Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds, Willie Nelson Run time: 106 minutes Release date: August 5, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, crude and drug-related humor, language and comic action violence. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "The Dukes of Hazzard"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

And Joe Don Baker is cast as the governor of Georgia.

If you find any of that objectionable/horrifying/too bourgeois for words, then you can start objecting/shuddering/smirking right about now.

Also, if you're a die-hard fan of the original TV series, particularly — moonshine and short shorts aside — its family-values-and-apple-pie appeal, then be warned that the movie is PG-13 and earns every bit of it. Who knew that marijuana went so well with white lightning?

The rest of y'all — particularly those still trying to figure out what "bourgeois" means — pay attention: This movie is funny. Really funny. Better yet, there's none of the bathroom humor so widespread in recent comedies; "Dukes" gets its laughs from the slapstick of stars Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville.

Low-brow? Sure. The plot, to be generous with the term, is typical of any of the TV episodes: Bo Duke (Scott, in two speeds: manic and confused) is aiming to win the annual Hazzard Road Rally in his beloved 1969 Dodge Charger, the General Lee. But then he and cousin Luke (Knoxville) find out that villainous Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) has villainous plans for Hazzard County.

The cliches are all here, too: There's a barroom fight at the Boar's Nest, Boss Hogg spells out his scheme to Bo and Luke when they are safely behind bars, there's a clock ticking away the seconds to certain disaster...

Do Bo and Luke escape from jail and find a way to defeat Boss Hogg? Does Bo win the race? Does it all end with a picnic on the farm and sheer bucolic bliss?

Sheesh, if you don't know, I'm not telling.

Scott and Knoxville make a surprisingly effective modern-day Bo and Luke. Scott's clueless intensity is balanced by the wry screwiness of Knoxville. Not as innocent as the original Duke boys (and let's not even mention the evil Duke boys, Coy and Vance), their interaction is more "Jackass" than "The Waltons."

Reynolds might be the most inspired bit of casting. Wisely abandoning any attempt to match the sputtering of Sorrell Brooke's Boss Hogg, Reynolds instead oozes with smug refinement. He's matched by Willie Nelson, whose portrayal of Uncle Jesse might be the closest to an original TV character. Nelson, a fine actor when he's playing himself, does just that — scowling at the law and telling semi-dirty jokes.

It's not all great casting: M.C. Gainey, the crazy pilot from "Con Air" (and if you didn't see any entertainment value in "Con Air" then this probably isn't your movie either) is a bust as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. One of the most important characters in the TV series, Rosco is completely wrong here: mean-hearted and pretty much left out of the plot.

And then there's Jessica Simpson, who fleshes out — in a literal sense — the role of Daisy Duke, while missing out on any of the smarts or heart that made Catherine Bach more than a pair of short shorts. She's there solely to be exploited, a body in a bikini to distract the bad guys.

Simpson spells it out in her finest bit of dialogue: "You know what's gonna happen. They're gonna get caught and get thrown in jail. Then I'm gonna have to shake my (rear) at somebody to get them out."

With so little expected of her, she manages to at least do that fairly well.

Oh, and another couple of "Dukes" fans' favorite things: The General-Lee-in-mid-flight-freeze-frame effect is used nicely a handful of times, complete with narration from the new "balladeer" ... Junior Brown takes over the role made famous by the late Waylon Jennings.

"Dukes" will gets heaps of scorn, to be sure. Some feminists will hate it and rightly so. Serious movie critics and fans will sneer at it. Some fans of the TV show won't like it at all.

That's too bad, because "Dukes" is good fun. And I ain't just whistling Dixie.