The Longest Yard (2005) Critic Reviews

Everyone in this overstaffed showbiz sampler has been better somewhere else. An assortment of talented comedians, character actors, professional athletes, sports commentators, one rapper, and two former sitcom stars sit in this movie like too much food on a buffet cart.Read the full review

The Longest Yard more or less achieves what most of the people attending it will expect. Most of its audiences will be satisfied enough when they leave the theater, although few will feel compelled to rent it on video to share with their friends. So, yes, it's a fair example of what it is.Read the full review

Each joke and one-liner is a made-for-HBO zinger, each scene with Sandler a reaffirmation of the old friendship between the two successful SNL alums.Read the full review

If you're thinking of seeing it, and you're old enough to drive (or even read this), do yourself a favor and rent the original instead.Read the full review

What links the two films in fun and ferocity is the big game, a ripsnorter that is irresistibly entertaining.Read the full review

No classic, but neither was the original starring Burt Reynolds. Instead, it's an odd mix of amusing nonsense and nastiness that chugs along, hit and miss, until the last section, which is the best part of the movie and its real reason for being: the game.Read the full review

What was already a raucous put-on, a goof on Aldrich's brutal action movies, is now a hyperbolic, gross-out cartoon, with a cast of enormous ex-football stars (plus the 7-foot-2-inch Indian wrestler Dalip Singh) only adding to the air of facetiousness.Read the full review

This agreeable remake still manages to go the distance.Read the full review

Softer, louder and cleaner than the 1974 version, the new film sentimentalizes the prisoners and the game, filing down their sharpest edges so that winning becomes a matter of triumph rather than resistance.Read the full review