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Simpson's jiggle is sole sign of life in 'Dukes of Hazzard'

"Dukes of Hazzard" and "original canon" are phrases usually not found in the same sentence, because hoity-toity critic words like "canon" are usually reserved for the body of work of William Shakespeare, while the Dukes of Hazzard is mostly remembered for the body of Daisy Duke, which she would shake while serving beer.

So forgive me for going highbrow in my complaints about the sometimes funny but just OK movie remake of CBS' belovedly goofy 1979-1985 series. The travails of good ol' boys Bo and Luke Duke and their moonshine-running kin in Hazzard, Ga., weren't supposed to be anything more than a rip-roaring, beef- and cheesecakey good time, and attempting to dissect the show's meaning is akin to dissecting a Jell-O mold — it's all wiggle and jiggle, with nothing underneath.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'The Dukes of Hazzard' The verdict: Just because good ol' boys never mean no harm doesn't mean they don't do any. 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

Still, there was something under the Dukes of Hazzard, even if it was no more substantial than a sweet down-hominess, an innocent chuckle or two and, of course, the General Lee, with its big old Confederate flag on the roof, which didn't exactly endear it to some of us whose ancestors spent the Civil War in Dixie involuntarily, if you get my drift.

Even with that stickiness, and after getting a Civil War history lesson from my parents at the age of 8, I really loved the Dukes on TV, because of its silliness, its fast cars, its Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach), whom I understood to be both bimbo-esque and very bright, and mostly because of its Bo (John Schneider) and its Luke (Tom Wopat), with their sweet grins, fierce family loyalty and Breck Girl-worthy hair.

So I can't help but go purist on y'all when talking about this new Dukes, directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. It gets the surface stuff right — the "Yee-haw!" masculinity, the tight jeans on Nu Bo (Seann William Scott) and Nu Luke (Johnny Knoxville), and especially the Daisy Duke shorts on Jessica Simpson, but it hasn't got a clue about the heart of it.

Actually, the presence of the sometimes charming Mr. Knoxville, of MTV's Jackass, is pretty telling, because that show is all about flagrant shocks and yucky gross-outs. I can't believe I'm about to call the original Dukes subtle, but it had a way of couching the naughty bits — like the moonshine, flaunting of the law and Daisy's legs — in a wink.

The Dukes of Hazzard movie, like those stupid botched remakes of Bewitched, I Spy and Wild, Wild West, can't just let that be good enough — no, it's gotta get cute, camping it up or dumbing it down or showing the naivete of it, or when that fails, just throwing a bunch of boobies on the screen.

There are so many things that Chandrasekhar gets wrong, but here's the worst of it:

 •  Bo and Luke were not stupid. They weren't brilliant, either; Daisy and Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle in the series, Willie Nelson here) were always the brain trust of the Duke family. But Knoxville and Scott go the buffoon route, making them mispronounce, cat around and fall-down-go-boom at every turn. Basically, it's Jackass Goes To Hazzard.

 •  Bo and Luke were hunky. As someone pointed out to me, it's no fair that the guys get Jessica Simpson to drool over, while we ladies get Stifler and the Jackass guy.

 •  Boss Hogg was not scary. I love Burt Reynolds. I really do. And I enjoyed his oiliness as the white-suited, crawfish-loving town boss. But there's something more threatening and edgier about the Bandit than there was about blustery, harmless Sorrell Brooke.

Not that it's a complete mess — Uncle Jesse remains an ornery, rascally rabbit, although the inevitable pot scene at the end (Hi, Willie!) was a bit much. And for a woman who's made her reputation acting dumb, Jessica Simpson is — surprise — the best thing in the movie, because she understands that much like her own persona, Daisy's shorts are a means to an end.

There is one thing I loved about the movie, although you gotta wait for it — Willie Nelson's ending credits remake of the show's theme, done originally by his late friend Waylon Jennings. But by then, the movie was over. As was my patience.

The Flick Chick's Bottom Line: Just because good ol' boys never mean no harm doesn't mean they don't do any.