Dukes of Hazzard and Stealth Reviews
Saturday night, we went to see Dukes of Hazzard and Stealth at the Drive-in and since both are, again, not much in the way of storyline, then I am going to do a dual review again.
Dukes of Hazzard. As a child, this was one of the best shows on TV. Shows like this one, The A-Team, and Knight Rider were shows that I looked so forward to each week. So, needless to say, there is a certain sense of nostalgia in this remake. I had seen the previews, so I knew that this was not going to be the Hazzard County that I was accustomed.
Instead of the comedy coming from Boss Hog and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, it comes from our main characters of Bo and Luke Duke. In the shows that I remembered, the main catalysts of Hog and the Sheriff were very incompetent, and were unable to go through with their plans because, not only were they foiled by the Duke boys each week, but they also had hearts. They weren’t the heartless villains of most shows that only had number one in mind. Instead, you loved them. You wanted them to go straight and be on the right side of the law instead of going to jail and getting into trouble. But in the movie, this is different. Burt Reynolds and M.C.Gainey have taken on the roles of Hog and Coltrane and gone a completely different direction with the characters. They have made the characters into your everyday villains that you don’t even like seeing on the screen because they have really become cookie cutter bad guys. But enough of my rant on that, on to the main characters.
You have Bo and Luke played by Sean William Scott and Johnny Knoxville. Really, for the characters that they played, they didn’t do too bad. If this hadn’t been a Dukes of Hazzard remake, then I might have enjoyed their characters and how they portrayed them. But it wasn’t and so they took something I loved and killed it. And you also had Jessica Simpson who really should never act again. Keep her out of commercials, movies, tv. She needs to stick to reality shows if she wants to be on tv. Her role was boring and really all it did was show off her body. The character really just said "I’m hot and can get what I want from any man, but that’s all I can do." And you had Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse. He also needs to stick to singing. At first, I thought that he was a good choice, but with the character that they put him into, it didn’t work, and he was a boring character as well. They really made it seem like Uncle Jesse was just a pot-smoking, drinking old man. That was not it at all, and got on my nerves.
Now, I have to rant about one more thing. The cussing. I was amazed at how much language was in this movie. It was completely uncalled for and overused. I understand that we are in the south and certain words become commonplace, but give me a break. It was ridiculous. I mean, I have been to movies where there was much more cursing, but it was done in good taste. This one was just kind of a thrown in thing to make it more of a movie for the adult audience.
The really only good part about the film was Kevin Heffernan. He played Sheev, and you may know him as Farva on Super Troopers. His character was really funny, and he did a great job in the role. Everytime he came on the screen, I was excited to see him. He was really the only bright spot in this movie other than the car chases. Overall, this is not a movie for kids, and I really don’t think it is a movie for anyone. I went in with low expectations and was not disappointed. It hit right on what I thought. Other than Heffernan’s character, if you watch the previews for the movie, then you have pretty much seen the movie. I really expected more from Broken Lizard who made Super Troopers, but I guess they can’t all be winners. I give Dukes of Hazzard a 3 out of 10.
Alright, so on to the final movie of the review. Stealth. This one I went in expecting a cut and dry action movie. And got exactly what I was expecting. Apparently this is not the summer for the blow up action blockbusters. With Island doing very poorly at the box office and this one following right behind, it seems we have lost our excitement about the cookie cutter action flick. It is directed by the same guy who directed XXX and Fast and the Furious and was the producer for the atrocious XXX2 from earlier this year. So at least he stepped up from his most recent movie.
Stealth has multiple characters who are what you expect from them. They have a heart, and the ones that don’t, just don’t care about anyone other than number one. It really tries to be more than it is capable, and seems like about halfway through there should be a moral to the story, and then they decide, "Nah, forget it, let’s just make some cool action stuff happen". Now, this to say, there are some good performances. One, it was good to see Josh Lucas as a good guy for once. He seems to always get the bad guy roles. But keeps getting passed over for the good guy. I think he does a really good, solid job as our main character. Also, Sam Shepard does great as the commanding officer of our 3 pilots. I don’t want to give too much away, but he plays his role extremely well. Jamie Foxx is in only about 15 minutes of the movie. He is in all of the trailers. In fact, he is in almost every scene of every trailer, but he is not in much of the movie. This was shot before he put out Ray, so he wasn’t the star that he is today at the time. So now they have to market it as his film. Jessica Biel was just so-so. She didn’t do great, and didn’t do terrible. I believe that her in the right role could be awesome, but this is not it. I couldn’t tell whether it was the writing’s fault, or the actress’ fault as to the problem with her in this film, but it just felt a little awkward.
The writing was predictable and the foreshadowing was very laid out. I was neither impressed, nor disappointed in this. It was, as I have said, what I expected. There was one point where I actually, vocally said, this is what is going to happen, and lo and behold, it did. I enjoyed kind of sitting back and not thinking too much, but if they were going in the direction of the letting computers think for themselves arena, then they needed to go there and not pull back like they did. But, the airplane scenes looked great. It was very smooth, and looked extremely good. They flowed very well, and fit into the story without going overboard. The movie wasn’t great, but it was a decent flick that I will probably watch again when it comes out on DVD so I can see the cool planes again. I give Stealth a 6 out of 10.
was jessica alba in this movie? or do you mean Jessica Beal? (sp?)