Putting ‘Dukes’ to the Teen Boy Test

As the opening credits for the movie “Dukes of Hazzard” rolled past on the big screen, it struck me that “credits” might not be the right word. To use a loose analogy, we don’t assign terrorists credit for attacks; we assign them responsibility.

But there I go again. I hadn’t even seen the movie, and yet I was judging it.

If a film based on one of the worst television shows ever made can pull in $30 million in its first weekend, shouldn’t I at least give it a chance?

I had questions about whether it was good for national security to introduce “Dukes” and “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo” to the world on consecutive weekends -- especially while we’re at war with an enemy that hates our culture. But I decided to put them aside and head for the multiplex.

“Dukes” star Jessica Simpson, marketed as a sort-of Viagra for teenagers, is everywhere these days. She’s been hot since a reality show launched her singing and acting career. These stellar accomplishments earned her an invitation to the White House, where she met the U.S. Interior secretary and told her she’d done a nice job decorating the place.

I became intrigued about “Dukes” after seeing a USA Today article devoted to the butt-building routine Simpson used to shape up for her role as Daisy Duke, hillbilly moonshine runner with really short shorts.

But enough about the road to stardom.

I checked the Los Angeles theater listings and then realized it would be better to see the movie in America, so I drove to the Antelope Valley Mall in Palmdale, where I saw three teenage boys playing a video game at the entrance to the 10-screen theater just before the start of “Dukes.”

Perfect, I thought. Hollywood, as we know, is all about selling popcorn and jiggle to teenage boys. This might be a good chance for me to get an inside look at how the industry is reading and shaping young minds.

The boys’ parents had dropped them off at the mall on a day when outdoor temperatures hit about 140 degrees. They were playing an arcade game called Time Crisis 3, which features “exciting, fast-paced shooting action.” But it’s for a good cause. Players are fighting “to save an innocent nation from total annihilation.”

I asked if they intended to see the “Dukes” after saving the nation.

“I want to, but he said he saw the previews and he doesn’t want to see it,” said Levi Nootenboom, 16, pointing to his friend Adam Kuipers, 17. Levi’s twin brother, Jed, was no spoilsport. He wanted to see the movie the moment he saw the trailer. There seemed to be a consensus among the Nootenbooms that Jessica Simpson is hot.

“It’s just not my cup of tea,” said Adam, who suspected “Dukes” wouldn’t be up to the level of “War of the Worlds,” which he loved.

Outnumbered, Adam was willing to go along with his pals. Especially after I offered to buy the tickets and food.

Teenagers lose no time deciding what size to get. If popcorn and Coke came in dunking tanks, that’s what they’d get. The boys got their tubs of salt and sugar, and into the theater we went.

The first trailer was for a remake -- surprise, surprise -- of “Yours, Mine and Ours.” I can’t be sure because we were in the dark, but I think Adam groaned. The kid was a born critic.

The trailer for “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” got a more positive response. As the male star met a bevy of beauties, one of my new pals was heard to utter, “Oh, yeah.”

Sony Pictures might want to consider delaying the release of “The Cave,” which got three thumbs down from my crew. “There are places man was never meant to go,” intoned the announcer.

As “Dukes” began, I suspected I was in one of those places. Warner Brothers has simply outdone itself.

Burt Reynolds, who must have had a gun to his head, plays Boss Hog, a man “as crooked as a hillbilly’s smile.” He’s trying to run the Dukes off their moonshine farm so he can strip-mine their ...

Wait a minute. There’s no point in breaking down a movie with a grease monkey named Cooter, a chaw-spitting safecracker who wears armadillo helmets and dirty underwear, two lead characters shocked to hear jeers over the Confederate flag painted on their race car, and lines like “What do you say we smoke this varmint out of his hole?”

The question is how it was playing with the boys.

“I like it,” Levi whispered to me just after Jessica Simpson filled up the screen with the benefits of all those workouts. “It’s good.”

After the final “responsibilities” rolled, the boys and I wandered out to the foyer to share notes.

“I liked the race car scenes,” said Jed.

“I liked the story line,” said Levi, bringing a guffaw from his twin.

“There was no story, man.” But although it was no work of art, Levi said, it was worth seeing on a summer day. And Jessica Simpson, to repeat, is hot. “Oh, yeah.”

Would they bring a girl to see it?

“You can’t bring a girl to a movie like this,” said Levi. She’d see you looking up at the screen, gawking, and give you the cold shoulder.

Adam, still the toughest critic in Palmdale, wasn’t buying any of it. For him, “Dukes” was more evidence that movies are getting dumber all the time, which might explain the box office falloff that has studio bosses scratching their heads.

“I just thought it was a stupid, boring movie,” he said.

But what about Jessica?

“She doesn’t know anything.”

What do you mean?

“She’s an idiot.”

Or a genius, I suppose. Based on her work in “Dukes,” she’s perfectly positioned for the day Hollywood makes “Three’s Company, The Movie,” and that day can’t be too far off.