My FIrst Negative Review

I really don't need to say much more on this one. 

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

THE DUKES OF HAZARD

Growing up I love the TV show and highly enjoyed the charm and the comedy of it.  Even after reading about 30 bad reviews in a row I still had some hopes that it would be a fun movie.  Boy, did I get a pretty big disappiontment. 

To start out with, the charm of the original series was not there.  It was completely gone.  It was instead replaced by oh not too subtle sexual inuendows, in fact it was not Subtle at all.  Sean William Scott who played Bo yells at Johny Knoxville who played Luke "Luke Duke!  You man whore!" when one of Lukes girlfriends goes chasing after them with a shotgun at the end.(I did laugh there)  Don't get me wrong.  I put them in my own screenplays, but it was not at all appropriate for a movie that parents who grew up with the series would drag their kids to see.  The amount of drug use also stole away from the original series charm.  Once again I have no problem with Drug or Alchohol use in movies, and the sale of moonshine did stay true to the original show, but the amount of weed that almost the entire Duke family consumed in the movie was pathetic.  They through it in there for the cheap laugh.

The acting was not too bad.  I am a Johnney Knoxville fan and was happy to see him put up a pretty good performance.  Sean William Scott did an okay job as well.  Surprisingly enough, and no it is not becasue she weres a bikini, Jessica Simpson is the one who stole the film and did a better job than any of them playing the part of Daisey Duke and still staying pretty true to the character of the original show.  Burt Reynolds on the other hand did not do such a good job.  Normally I like his work, but when it comes down to it he is no Boss Hogg.  Willie Nelson, in my view, should stick with singing and never act again.  If you actually do want to see a decent movie with him in it and him not doing a bad job, I recomend you pick up a Western called the Red Headed Stranger. 

The plot is as follows.  Boss Hogg plans on turning Hazard County into a strip mine.  To keep people from coming to the town meeting to object to that plan, he scheduales the meeting around the Hazard Coutny Race.  Bo and Luke find out the plan and go through rediculous measures to keep it from happening.  Basically a petty attempt to emulate what would be a plot for the original show and they really don't do a great job at it.  In fact they really do a sucky job at it. 

There are good points to the movie.  One of the parts were I actually laughed a little and the charm of the original show let its head be shown was when the Duke Boys tried to open a safe by dragging it behind a tow truck.  The narator simply says "I would not want to be that safe about now."  Bo even drags Luke who is hanging on to the safe at one point around with Luke shouting "No Bo!  No!"  Bo lying and saying "I thought you said 'Go Bo!  Go!'"  To add to it the car chases are excellent and are rather enjoyable, and seeing Jessica Simpson in a bikini is never a bad thing to see. 

To sum it all up it really does lack the charm of the original show and is not really something I would take a young kid to see (PG 13 actually does mean 13 on this one).  The plot is pathetic, but the acting from Knoxville and Simpson do shine out.  There are fun and even moments that do reflect the shows original charm, but not enough for me to recommend paying 6.50 to see.  If you have to see it on the big screen wait for the dollar theater.  If you just want to see it rent it.  I give it ** stars out of ****