The Longest Yard (2005) Critic Reviews

Whether it's the sight of Reynolds squeezed painfully into a football uniform or the endless footballs-to-the-crotch and tired gay jokes, The Longest Yard has the feeling of mutton dressed as lamb.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 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

Sandler impressively assumes the Reynolds role here, with strong support by Reynolds himself and a slightly restrained but frequently hilarious Chris Rock.Read the full review

That's what is missing from The Longest Yard most egregiously. Charm has been kept on the bench.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

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

The pleasure is entirely like eating cake made from cake mix. It's not like you don't know how it's going to turn out, or how it tasted the last time you ate it.Read the full review

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