I'm not against remakes on principal—there have been several good, or at least solid, Hollywood remakes of TV shows (The Fugitive, Charlie's Angels, S.W.A.T.). But yes, there have been plenty of absolutely wretched ones (I-Spy, McHale's Navy, The Honeymooners, Scooby-Doo). In truth, most of them are just generic, neither-here-nor-there airplane-movie fodder. But where the horrible ones always go wrong is in assuming that the film is bankable simply on a TV brand-name and having some well-known actors on-hand in beloved (or at least familiar) roles. Trading off semi-remembered nostalgia is the most irritating aspect of TV remakes at their worst. In these cases (The Dukes of Hazzard is certainly one, but Starsky & Hutch and Scooby-Doo also come to mind), the film is not so much a remake of or updated spin on an old TV show, it is a braindead fratboy homage to the decades of parodies, imitations, impressions, and cultural references to the old TV show. Do most people even concretely remember "The Dukes of Hazzard" anymore, or just the generalized idea of "The Dukes ofHazzard" as it's been passed down from lame comedians and lazy writers? Hence, the studio expects me to see the General Lee and reflexively become pumped, and then even more so when I consider the clever casting. Johnny Knoxville as Luke! Seann William Scott as Bo! Jessica Simpson as Daisy! Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg!!! WILLIE NELSON AS UNCLE JESSE!!!!!! HAW HAW!!!!! IT'S TOO PERFECT!!!!!! Then they randomly throw Lynda Carter into the mix, just for bonus hazy nostalgia. Does anyone get cast for the way they act anymore, or only for their metacontext? The studio might as well have not bothered actually casting anyone, but instead made the movie consist of people talking about possible cast members. Jon Favreau would have directed that version, which would only have been marginally better. Now, all of this would be solely my problem if the performances were not tangibly more cynical than the film's marketing. No one puts even the least bit of effort toward being convincing, honest, or even merely entertaining. The original TV show was probably not much more true to its audience than this film is, but at least John Schneider and Tom Wopat were real country boys. Knoxville and Scott come off as smug Hollywood partyboy-assholes making fun of someone making fun of something. Willie Nelson is fun, and having him in a scene with Burt Reynolds is pretty entertaining, if only in an ironically post-ironic sort of way. But for the most part, I may as well have just have been watching NASCAR. Perhaps my son will watch The Dukes of Hazzard the way I watch The Cannonball Run … in both cases the movies consist mostly of celebrities having fun on a movie set, almost entirely at the audience's expense. But there is a real qualitative difference between the two: where The Dukes of Hazzard has Willie Nelson fake-punching Burt Reynolds, The Cannonball Run had Burt Reynolds ACTUALLY slapping poor Dom DeLuise. Multiple times. Plus OUTTAKES of the slapping. * Sigh * They just don't make 'em like they used to.
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