Instead, most cinematic clones take a blowtorch to the old, hallowed blueprints and are nothing more than barefaced cash-ins which bludgeon and brutalise the source material to the point that somebody, really, should yell “MURDER!!!” and call the cops.

So which way does The Dukes Of Hazzard (12, previewed at Dundee Odeon) lean? Well, it isn’t one of those retreads that brings to mind words such as ‘homage’, ‘reverence’, ‘care’ or ‘finesse’.

In fact, it does a full defilement job on the quaint, fondly-tended grave of its dearly departed grandpappies, the grand old Dukes of yore (1979-1985) — it churns up the turf on the family plot with its smoking tyres, smashes the funerary flower-pots to smithereens with a bulldozing fender, and lassoes a tow-rope around the tomb-stone and drags it off down the road apiece.

As per the old TV show, the new movie is a Robin-Hood-like tale of good ole Southern boys and their scrapes with corrupt authority in Hazzard County.

Cousins Bo and Luke Duke (Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville) are in the moonshine business. Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson) and cousin Daisy (Jessica Simpson) produce the liquor in secret stills at the Duke family homestead and Bo and Luke distribute it from the boot of their souped-up Dodge Charger, nicknamed General Lee.

They’re always just a couple of car lengths ahead of the law, which comes in the shape of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (M. C. Gainey). He’s in the pocket of crooked town big-wig Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds), who runs the local roadhouse, The Boar’s Nest, and various other shady establishments.

The Dukes are a batch of pesky flies in Boss Hogg’s ointment, undermining his business with their moonshine shenanigans and generally getting under his feet at every turn.

However when Hogg manages to seize their farm and others around it, the Dukes get wind of his sinister plan to set up a huge strip-mining operation in Hazzard County which will turn their Dixieland Eden into a big, brown, hole in the ground.

With that cat out of the bag, the Dukes-versus-Hogg war gets ratcheted up a notch or several.

Dukes Of Hazzard: The Movie plays out like Duke Of Hazzard: Any Old Episode, but with a running time of 106 minutes, overstays its welcome by a good hour.

Once the good ole cast of Southern eccentrics have all made their entrances, and the audience has been treated to such character-establishing antics as Luke tumbling out of a farmer’s daughter’s bedroom window, or Bo snogging General Lee’s dashboard, or Daisy shaking her denim-hotpanted butt at the camera, the storyline settles into a tedious procession of slapstick brawls, crazy car chases, and scenes where Boss Hogg gets to looks increasingly peeved at Rosco’s failure to slap cuffs on the Duke clan.

In its heyday, The Dukes Of Hazzard TV series was fun, fresh, and fairly big bananas, but the film, with its simple, seen-before plot and stable of average actors brings absolutely nothing new to the party.

At least the recent Starsky And Hutch remake had A-list stars (Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson) and got playful with the old cop-show formula.

The likeable Scott and Knoxville do their best to give proceedings some pizazz but, unfortunately, they are strapped into one old heap of a movie which puts a big black skidmark across both of their CVs..

As for Burt Reynolds, 23 years on from the memorable, very scary Deliverance, here he is again in duelling banjos country, and looking even scarier.

Has he had plastic surgery recently? Perhaps some Botox injections?

If so, I know just what his unusual demand must have been when he had his first consultation with the nip-and-tuck quack — “Listen Doc, I want you to make me look like Norman Bates’ dessicated-corpse mother in Psycho!”

Clocking him in The Dukes, all I can say is, “Request met, with flying colours, Burt.”

VERDICT: Yep! A bare-faced cash-in. A large portion of Kentucky fried turkey.

PP