aberbiglia
The only reason this movie has a 5/10 rating is because of all the die hard Duke's of Hazard fans who watched the TV show growing up. The fact of the matter is if you have never seen the Dukes of Hazard TV show, or don't have a sentimental love for the show, then this movie is worth a watch. Johnny Knoxville and Sean William Scott clearly have great chemistry throughout the movie, the plot line isn't boring or hard to follow, and there are definitely some funny moments from start to finish. Jessica Simpson, Willie Nelson, Burt Reynolds, and Kevin Heffernan are some good extras who make the movie more enjoyable as well. Dukes of Hazard isn't the funniest movie you will ever see, but it deserves more than a 5/10 rating. I was shocked when I saw how low the IMDb rating for this movie was until I realized it's because of all the Dukes of Hazard TV show fanatic reviews. I got some good laughs out of this movie and I think it deserves more than 5 stars.
jessegehrig
Loveless bargain film-making. Several cocaine fueled "meetings" took place over a miserable weekend for two hookers in order for the screenplay to be written. From there the cruelty continued, first a director was forced to compromise his artistic integrity, then actors were forced into similar situations of compromised morals, until finally we, the audience, were then forced to betray something good when we watched it. A legacy of shame, passed along from one victim to the next all so some horrible sociopath can collect revenue. Great job Human Race what with that whole letting-the-world-be-run-by-evil-men thing, I think it's working out just fine.
elshikh4
Here's an opinion from someone who adores the TV show.Jessica Simpson isn't Daisy Duke (Horrible legs by the way, HORRIBLE!). Burt Reynolds isn't Boss Hogg; Reynolds looks like a stinking corpse, stinking as both drunk and musty. If it wasn't for his white outfit; he could have been unseen. He's deprived here of everything; presence, wit, capability of speak! Where was Danny DeVito for god's sake ?! Johnny Knoxville as Luke Duke and Seann William Scott as Bo Duke have nothing to do with the original characters unless their ages. They seem like dumb, sex maniac, and foul-mouthed kids which is faraway from the original 2 Dukes. Maybe this is the 2000s cinematic interpretation of them then! In this bothering manner, M.C. Gainey as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane was mean, just mean; whether as a different interpretation, or a try to squeeze any comedy out of the comic series ! Junior Brown as The balladeer / narrator was palely written, with no memorable character or funny remarks. Lynda Carter as Pauline didn't do anything at all. I don't know what the need for her character was in the first place?! As long as we talk about the same TV show, I don't recall a character by the name, and of course the antics, of Derek "Sheev" Sheevington (played by Kevin Heffernan). Most probably it's an addition from this movie's director Jay Chandrasekhar inspired by his previous, absolutely UGLY, comedy (Super Troopers – 2001) where Kevin Heffernan played a very imbecile, very disgusting Vermont state trooper named Farva. So why not to remake it under the name of Sheev, and in the world of The Dukes of Hazzard, sorry; this less innocent, more filthy alternative world of The Dukes of Hazzard ?!!! So the casting sucked, rather shocked. And the changes sure stretched to damage big part of the show's authentic taste. Take for little instance the TV show's sweet elegance. It used to have the sexist gals at the time, even for the cameos, while here the 2 girlfriends of the 2 leads look away from that. For bigger instance; seeing Uncle Jesse, the head of wisdom in the TV show, smocking weed reminded me with the transformation of Huggy Bear, the street hustler / bar's owner of another 70s-80s TV show Starsky & Hutch, into florid pimp in the very show's cinematic remake, one year earlier. I was surprised (or not) when I knew that the 2 remakes were written by the same guy : John O'Brien. Clearly he wanted to take the known-by-heart characters into the next level. But why that next level had to be dirty ?! The original Dukes of Hazzard was a kids show, with teen jokes, and adult chases I suppose. Now we follow a teen everything, even Jessica Simpson looks like a 14 year old girl (who wears her mother's makeup heavily !). They thought that by adding endless, and needless, F words, pot smoking, sex jokes, plus Sheev character; the movie would work fine with the audiences of 2005, with naturally the demographic of today's teens, or – according to this movie's mindset – today's empty-headed teens. Nevertheless, they – the producers – forgot that the audiences of the from-1979-to-1985 TV show, who where kids back then, became parents by 2005, so most of them must have felt nauseated and turned off out of the casting, the changes, and the way things run this round.So aside from losing the show's moral code, the movie lost considerably the old glamorous touch, in many ways, which did annoy badly, especially without compensating it with as good or better new stuff. That's why all the original Dukes (Tom Wopat, John Schneider and Catherine Bach) declined the offer of having cameos in this movie according only to reading its script. I believe they found their show's name but not its spirit, with sauciness instead of suaveness.All that being said, the rest of the movie is a nice action. The script led the matter as unceasing light ride from start to finish, with interweaving cleverly the mission of saving the title characters' hometown, along with the big car race, and the final trial where all the facts around Boss's evilness expose. The action is very well made; hence it was entirely – if not shamefully – unfair from the Razzie's judges to nominate Jay Chandrasekhar for the worst director of the year. Without his eye for the good chases, and the heart-capturing jumps, this movie could have been far from watchable, and far from the TV show as well ! Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse Duke was the only casting's shot to be aimed rightly. He was fit as the real Uncle Jesse, and provided fun on-screen time. I had a blast while hearing the show's beautiful theme song at the closing credits. Loyal before nostalgic that was. Yet, this movie shortly destroyed that feeling by showing the bloopers, like Burt Reynolds's car movies of the 1980s, where totally unfunny and gross stuff were being thrown at us like Seann William Scott complaining in laughter about Johnny Knoxville "He showed me his BALLS" !!! Actually that's the problem with this movie; not swerving away the harmless TV show inasmuch as making a layer of good, followed by a layer of ugly. Waylon Jennings, the TV show's balladeer, used to sing "Just two good ole boys..", well, I think they should have changed it also to be "Just two ribald teens.." ! Simply, this movie's teen glee wasn't amusing. Thank god that the movie's rest was.
