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Jessica's legs are about all 'Dukes of Hazzard' gets right

Just a dumb ol' flick
Doing my brain cells harm
Beats all I ever saw
Oh, this film stuck in my craw
Since the first scene unfurled

I come to bury "The Dukes of Hazzard," not to praise it. It is truly a sad state of affairs when I can say with utmost sincerity that Jessica Simpson's performance is the highlight of this movie.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'The Dukes of Hazzard' D- The verdict: An onslaught of stupidity — the wrong kind of stupidity. 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]

Though I may paraphrase Shakespeare, no sane person would expect that from this flick. Truth be told, I didn't really expect it to be any good, but the 10-year-old boy in me was kind of looking forward to it. Now the 10-year-old is ticked off.

Back at that tender age, I thought "The Dukes of Hazzard" was the greatest show ever. I was glued to the TV on Friday nights like barbecue sauce sticks to spare ribs. I had the General Lee radio-controlled car, the racetrack set ... I even watched the Saturday morning cartoon.

One of my favorite Mad magazine satires was "The Dopes of Haphazzard." Riffing on the narration, the satire said, "In the TV show, this is where they would 'freeze' the picture and go to a commercial. Sorry folks, but this is a magazine. You don't get that kind of luck. Our story's gonna continue."

That's how I felt watching the movie: trapped.

I'm not even going to bother with a plot synopsis. As the film's Luke Duke, Johnny Knoxville, quite accurately told Premiere magazine, "What plot? The plot's just an excuse to blow up (bleep) and see Jessica's legs."

Well, thank goodness for Jessica's legs, because they're among the few things this movie gets right.

I got a kick out of Simpson, and not just because she's easy on the eyes. She has a sassy charm that makes her fun to watch when she beans her sexually harassing patrons in the Boar's Nest by flinging billiards at them with a fan. Probably the best compliment I can pay her is that I wouldn't mind seeing her in another movie.

But the rest of the film is an onslaught of stupidity — the wrong kind of stupidity. TV's Bo and Luke were never dumb. Simple, sure, but not dumb. This movie's Bo and Luke, Seann William Scott and Knoxville, play them as idiots who deserve to be laughed at, with crude jokes aplenty.

The movie could have wrung some laughs if it had cast Willie Nelson as the balladeer, in place of his old buddy, the late Waylon Jennings. Instead, it casts him as Uncle Jesse, giving him gags like "Why is divorce so expensive? Cause it's worth it."

Yikes. For a second there, I thought I was in a "Hee Haw" rerun.

Here's a prime example of how the movie missed the point: We see Bo wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt, and we hear AC/DC during one of the chases. What, no Lynyrd Skynyrd?

Then it hit me: This is "The Dukes of Hazzard" as directed by Beavis and Butt-Head. And that is not a compliment.