Pun Salad

The main question here: why did anyone feel the need to remake The Longest Yard? It doesn't have much new to say. Many of the scenes, and a lot of the jokes, are exact duplicates of the 1974 movie.

("The 1974 movie." As in, nearly a third of a century ago. Egads, I feel old.)

Nevertheless, they did remake it, and the result is OK, once you get beyond the inherent unbelievability of Adam Sandler as an ex-NFL quarterback. Burt Reynolds returns, playing the older movie's Mike Conrad role. ("Let's be careful out there.") I've always been a big Ed Lauter fan (honest) and he's back too, as one of the warden's golfing buddies. (Quick recap: James Cromwell plays the Eddie Albert role; Cloris Leachman plays the Bernadette Peters role; Chris Rock plays the James Hampton role; William Fichtner plays the Ed Lauter role; Courtney Cox plays the Anitra Ford role; Dalip Singh plays the Richard Kiel role very convincingly.)

But if you have to see only one version of this movie, see the older one.

I almost gave this another half star simply for Courtney Cox's dress. Uh, I don't believe she had those in Friends, friends.