THE LONGEST YARD (2005)

THE ROLE In this remake of the 1974 comedy, Sandler is Paul ''Wrecking'' Crewe, an ex-football star who ends up in prison and organizes a team of his fellow inmates to take on the meanie guards. (The role was originally played by Burt Reynolds, who stars in the remake as the convicts' coach.)

WHAT EW SAID Lisa Schwarzbaum: ''Adam Sandler doesn't look like a guy who could shave points off a football game, at least not without bursting into tears of remorse and apologizing in a high-pitched burble. Burt Reynolds does — and did with even more anarchic macho swagger some 30 years ago... And therein lies a cultural shift that culminates in [this] reasonably diverting but curiously defanged remake.''