“Do we get ourselves ready for the ass-kicking fiesta of football?”

Justin’s rating: You ever notice that when James Cromwell isn’t playing the Sweetest Guy in the Universe, he’s being Satan Incarnate? There’s like no middle ground with him.

Justin’s review: The Longest Yard asks me to buy Adam Sandler as both a former professional quarterback and a convict, and all I can think of is The Waterboy Goes to Shawshank. But since this came during Sandler’s attempt to broaden his appeal, I’m willing to buy an extra-large bucket of suspended disbelief and accept this remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds flick.

Disgraced former Steelers quarterback Paul Crewe (Sandler) finds himself serving three years at a Texan prison. This is a deliberate relocation, as the warden (James Cromwell) wants Crewe to help improve his underperforming prison guard football team — but the guards weirdly don’t. It’s never explained why they don’t, either.

As he fails to make anyone happy on that front, Crewe also finds himself despised by most of the prison population for throwing an important NFL game a while back.

While I do like The Longest Yard as a general sports comedy, it’s hard not to see how there’s a gulf between Sandler’s trademark wisecracks and the brutal life of a penitentiary. The two don’t gel very well, especially since the sadistic guards have the upper hand in the power pyramid. For a while there, every time Crewe makes a joke, he gets beaten, and that’s hard to watch even for those of us who paid full price for Little Nicky.

So it’s a case of this movie trying to go in a semi-serious inspirational direction… while also trying to retain enough of Sandler immaturity to appeal to the college kids who only show up for that sort of thing.

Anyway, the solution to all of Crewe’s problems emerges organically. If the guard team needs help improving, the best way to do this is to create a scrimmage team of prisoners led by Crewe himself. It’s win-win-win. The warden gets a better team, the guards get an easy win to boost their confidence, and the convicts have a shot at getting even with their captors.

And seeing how nasty the warden and guards are — this movie literally beats that point home — you truly want these guys to win a game they’re absolutely supposed to lose.

There’s actually a pretty stacked cast here, including Terry Crews, Chris Rock, William Fichtner, Tracy Morgan, and Steve Austin. Oh, and Burt Reynolds comes back as a coach, mostly so that you can point at him and go, “You were in the original! I think! I’ve never actually seen it but I’m afraid to admit that!”

It’s the well-trod territory of a ragtag team of misfits with their own specialties finding victory while their lead discovers redemption. But by setting it in a prison, there’s a different zing on this story, with the inmates using all of their dirty tricks and attitude out on the field. It also goes dark when you’re not expecting it, which I guess is in line with this setting, but it does push the PG-13 pretty far as a result.

As I said, I like this well enough, but it’s in spite of its flaws and tonal inconsistencies. There’s enough jokes to make it a comedy, enough spirited football to deliver the sports, and enough of a soundtrack to make me remember that this is an MTV production.

Intermission!

• I keep forgetting MTV has/had a film division
• Courtney Cox in that red dress is all most guys can remember of this film
• “You can finish that one, I have five more.”
• He did get a scratch on that car
• “Colonel Sanders’ been eatin’ his own chicken.”
• “For a small fee I can even get you McDonald’s.”
• What the heck was that grenade?
• “Why don’t we have a maniacal pillow fight tonight?”
• Sasquatch loves to headbutt walls
• Terry Crews does a mean robot
• “Thank you half a star…”
• This guy keeps pulling cheeseburgers out of everywhere
• OK the guards just made a muddy wonderland
• Some unexpected Short Circuit here
• “Why are we talking about your nipples?”
• ESPN is covering this game?
• Smoking while playing is a choice
• The barbed wire design on the cons’ helmets