CORPORATE LINE: “The Longest Yard” is the story of pro quarterback Paul Crewe (Sandler) and former college champion and coach Nate Scarboro (Reynolds), who are doing time in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards, Crewe enlists the help of Scarboro to coach the inmates to victory in a football game “fixed” to turn out quite another way.
THE GOOD: Nothing.
THE BAD: Chris Rock who is normally good isn’t anything more than an annoying sidekick who plays a part not even in the original movie. Burt Reynolds, who isn’t bad in his role, plays such a minor part you wonder why he’s even in the movie.
This version of The Longest Yard never sets the stage for anything other than allowing Sandler to take the screen and make a few bucks. In the original you hated the guards. You wanted the criminals to wipe the floor with them and yet here you see so little of the guards you start to wonder if you even care. You have to revert back to everything you know about the guard and inmate relationship and what may happen when we aren’t watching—that isn’t good enough. The stage is very poorly set.
Sandler couldn’t fool anyone with his attempt at being a sentimental bad boy. Too much about him still screams annoying and this vain attempt at being a bad boy is entirely too much. To think he tried to put himself in the same category of cool as Burt Reynolds is laughable.
THE EXTRAS:
“The Care and Feeding of Pro Athletes” is interesting because we see what it takes to feed the amazing athletes that are in the movie. All I can say is ‘wow!’
“First Down And Twenty-Five to Life” is the most in-depth feature on the DVD. The cast and crew talk about the film and all of the issues that came during the filming. It’s much better than your run-of-the-mill feature fluff piece.
“Lights, Camera, Touchdown!” is more of the same. We’ve heard over and over again how hard they tried to make the movie look authentic on the football field. The interesting thing is how little game is played in the movie compared to the rest of the story.
“Extra Points with Commentary by Peter Segal” discusses the special effects. One of the most amazing is the creation of a ping pong ball. If you watch the actual playing of ping pong by Sandler in the movie you would never know it wasn’t real. The real question is ‘why do you need to make a CGI ping pong game?’ Was it so hard for Sandler to figure out?
“Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary” are the usual scenes that were cut. Boring
“Music Video: “Errtime” By Nelly” is a waste.
The rest is mostly filler.
FRANKLY: The Longest Yard is has nothing that made the original so great. We never believe Sandler could be this great quarterback who had and lost. We never care about who wins—after all doesn’t our gut say the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad? The guards are a little mean but they have to do something to keep the criminals in line. The Longest Yard is a mess and Sandler is the captain of a team that no one cares about.
+ Charlie Craine
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.