Film - Two lame-brained hill-billies make an unwelcome return, writes Mark Kermode The Dukes of Hazzard (12A) The Mighty Celt (12A) The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (U)

Last week, those talented Ephron sisters Nora and Delia made a sow's ear out of a comparative silk purse - the sparky 1960s TV sitcom Bewitched. This week, an altogether less impressive team of the director Jay Chandrasekhar (co-creator of the loathsome Club Dread) and writer John O'Brien (who adapted Starsky and Hutch for the big screen) perform a similarly depressing trick with that boorish 1980s bozo-fest, The Dukes of Hazzard. The main difference is that, unlike Samantha and co, the small-screen Duke boys were utterly intolerable in the first place. Unsurprisingly, this gormless, lame-brained, hill-billy twaddle is a Confederate flag-waving clunker from start to finish.

The comic potential of two redneck dorks driving a crap orange roadster around a Georgia backwater, interspersed with shots of a blonde-haired Barbie doll modelling "the shortest shorts in the South", had been pretty much exhausted by the end of episode one of the Dukes of Hazzard TV show back in 1979. Amazingly, six entire series ensued, proving that television is indeed the technological equivalent of heroin. Now, left to flounder on the big screen, Bo and Luke (here played by Seann William Scott of American Pie and Johnny Knoxville of Jackass) seem even less loveable than before, their faux "yeehaw" country-boy shtick falling flatter than an armadillo run over by a monster truck.

There are a few pathetic attempts to "up-date" the original concept for a modern audience, notably a scene in which city folk take umbrage at the General Lee's trademark Southern States roof decals, but such tokenistic modifications are merely toe-curling. Playing to the kind of audience that would laugh at a road-traffic accident, and apparently aware of the wretchedness of the script, Chandrasekhar falls back on endless set-piece car chases, engineering ways for that ole Dodge Charger to leap into the air at every opportunity and display its flying undercarriage. The recording artist Jessica Simpson keeps her undercarriage on display, too, slipping joylessly into the role of Daisy Duke, who is hilariously descri- bed by the film-makers as "a refreshingly honest and positive role model". On the "celebrity cameo" front, Burt Reynolds looks like a man whose face will snap off if he exercises it too hard, Lynda Carter reminds us just how rubbish Wonder Woman really was, and Willie Nelson, the country legend, debases himself beyond all measure by selling his soul to the devil in this excremental hogwash. I only hope he got paid handsomely for his sins.

By comparison with The Dukes of Hazzard, the other releases in this week's selection come as something of a relief. Writer-director Pearse Elliott's The Mighty Celt is a post-Troubles Irish fable that plays like "Kes goes to the dogs". Tyrone McKenna, a newcomer, is a charming presence as young Donal, a wide-eyed boy who experiences elation and heartbreak as he trains and cares for a fleet-footed pooch. Despite the potentially grim political backdrop, this is much more overtly sentimental than Ken Loach's inspirational masterpiece, a truth summed up in Robert Carlyle's line: "We need a happy ending." And indeed, we get one, although fittingly not without a degree of jeopardy and suffering en route.

A small film with its heart firmly in the right place, this is generally likeable if rather lightweight fare, with Carlyle and Gillian Anderson, the X-Files star, wrestling gamely with their Irish accents, and Ken Stott lending an air of menace as an unscrupulous dog owner ironically named "Good Joe".

And finally, after the adults-only sleaze of Sin City, Robert Rodriguez, director of Spy Kids, is back in fun-for-all-the-family mode with The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. Based on a story dreamt up by Robert's then seven-year-old son Racer, it's an entertainingly even-handed fantasy, providing character-building thrills and spills for boys and girls alike. The young cast is consistently engaging, with both Taylors Lautner and Dooley athletically ripping it up as the titular heroes, and Cayden Boyd avoiding drippiness as a latter-day Johnny Head-in-Air. The digital designs, too, are typically eye-popping, as Rodriguez once again places his cast within a computer-generated landscape, and with very convincing results. So what a shame that the 3D effects are so head-achingly lousy: Rodriguez resorts to the cronky old red-green glasses (as opposed to more modern polarising techniques), which turn the film's bright palette into a stodgy brown mush. I would much rather have watched this in simple 2D; the film's upbeat ideas really don't need such a downbeat gimmick to bring them to life.

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