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'The Dukes of Hazzard': Nice car, nothing else

"The Dukes of Hazzard" would have been a vastly improved movie had it just shown its vintage muscle car, the venerable '69 Dodge Charger "General Lee," speeding around for 90 minutes, perhaps with occasional gratuitous shots of a scantily clad Daisy Duke.

Oh, wait... that's mostly what happens anyway.

But sadly, the alleged actors speak every now and then. And that's when the movie throws a rod and conks out on the side of the road.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'The Dukes of Hazzard' D The verdict: Inept, inane and in all ways inferior to the 25-year-old TV show. Which is saying something in itself. 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 [an error occurred while processing this directive]

With a pitiful plot, dreadful dialogue and inept acting, this feeble film attempts to re-tell a story that's been told in re-runs for 20 years. In short, cousins Bo and Luke Duke (Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville) must save the family farm — as well as most of Hazzard County, Ga. — from the clutches of the sinister Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds), who wants to strip-mine it. They are aided by moonshining Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), buxom cousin Daisy Duke (Jessica Simpson) and, of course, the car.

Through city and country, off-road and in the air, the General Lee delivers the Dukes from one piece of dull dialogue to another. As long as the car is running, the movie is tolerable. Shut off the motor and you're left with the inane banter of screenwriter John O'Brien, who has previously brought you such lackluster TV rip-offs as "Starsky & Hutch."

This cast delivers O'Brien's lines like a poetry reading assignment in a second-grade class — although that's insulting to second graders, who generally work with better material. The dialogue in this movie is as flat as a Georgia peanut field, but with fewer laughs. Willie Nelson's delivery is so stale that he's relegated to reciting nothing but one-liners — which he still delivers poorly.

The three relative newcomers fare no better. Knoxville comes across as a manic moron; Scott simply looks bewildered. In her pink bikini and high heels, nobody is listening to Jessica Simpson anyway.

But the biggest disappointment is Reynolds, an actor with more experience than anyone in the Southern-fried genre. He's been around enough cameras to know how to play to them, but you couldn't tell it from his performance here.

Still, the movie has a hot muscle car. The General Lee is by far the finest actor in the picture, carrying the few scenes that are worth watching. The car was always the star of the TV show, too, but at least there it had some supporting actors. Here it has to bear the weight alone.

The only living character who appears natural in his habitat is Flash, the crawfish-eating hound. Thankfully, unlike his co-workers, he has the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

Those remaining mouths are sometimes foul enough to push the PG-13 rating to its limits. One of Johnny Knoxville's outtakes during the closing credits illustrates: "Did I say {expletive deleted} or {expletive deleted} this time?"

Crude humor, car chases, sexual innuendo, bar fights, moonshine and marijuana: No doubt this is the family entertainment that neophyte director Jay Chandrasekhar, a Colgate Beta Theta Pi, believes we good ol' Southerners expect. The script is so tasteless that former Georgia congressman Ben Jones, who played Cooter in the original "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show, urged fans to stay away unless the filmmakers cleaned up the "profanity laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series." (You can read Jones' full text here.)

In every way this movie is inferior to the 25-year-old TV show. Which is saying something in itself.

Look, the original series was low-brow humor, sure. But it least it was delivered well. And it didn't depend on raunch to rally the audience.

Not that the innuendo succeeded on the big screen, either. Jessica Simpson could've taken off all her clothes and it wouldn't have helped this movie.