6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Prison inmates form a football team to challenge the prison guards.
Starring: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, Nelly, Michael IrvinComedy | 100% |
Sport | 22% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 2.0
English, English SDH, French
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
1974's The Longest Yard was a fairly big hit and remains one of the highlights of Burt Reynolds' illustrious screen career. The film pitted prisoners against guards in a rough-and-tumble game of full contact prison yard football, and the story was rife with worthwhile subtext and humor. For this 2005 remake, Adam Sandler stars in the Reynolds role in a film that may not be as funny, biting, gritty, or even graceful as the original, but it's every bit as mean and tough. Like most remakes it loses some of the underpinning context and purpose that made the original better than the sum of its parts, but this is nevertheless a worthwhile follow-up that holds to the same story and spirit even if it can't match the underlying sophistication that made the original one of the most memorable Sports films of its decade.
Paramount snaps The Longest Yard onto Blu-ray with an overall pleasing, if not slightly fumbled, 1080p transfer. The picture's color temperature runs obviously warm. Flesh tones take on an orange shading and the entire spectrum favors something of an orange/yellow/red tinge. But the colors are bold and stable within this temperature, including the contrast between the white prison guard jerseys and the black Mean Machine prisoner jerseys. There's a good stability to blue skies, green grass, and the earthen and otherwise tonally uninteresting prison structure and the immediate world around it. Details are solid. The picture is nicely filmic, holding to a natural grain structure (albeit looking a bit noisy as well) that offers stable, accurate details on faces, clothes, and environments. There is no evidence of hardcore scrubbing or texture flattening. There are no serious source flaws or encode anomalies to report. This is a solid Blu-ray start to finish.
The Longest Yard features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The track lacks the sort of intimate fidelity and perfect sound engineering of more modern films, but even if it's not quite so precise it is full and agreeably positioned throughout the film. Din inside a packed prison cafeteria draws the listener into the location, and when a brawl breaks out, the intensified, frantic cues increase in volume without sacrificing clarity. Sounds are well capable of extending through the stage during various rough-and-tumble prison yard and practice scenes and, of course, the big game offers big, amplified sound that combines hard hits and crowd din with excellent immersion and clarity. Musical engagement is in fine form for width and clarity. Dialogue is clear and reliably positioned in the center.
Paramount brings The Longest Yard to Blu-ray with a good number of legacy extras. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase.
This release does not ship with a slipcover.
The Longest Yard has a long ways to go to match the original, at least in terms of capturing the same dramatic essence and exploring the same context that runs underneath the story. This film is far more superficial, but it's still a solid and fun picture in its own right. Sandler is well cast, though certainly not as inspired as Reynolds in the original, and he's surrounded by a motley crew of one-shot, yet still well-defined, castmates. This is a very entertaining film and a worthwhile compliment to the original. Sadly, Paramount has yet to release the original on Blu-ray in the United States (but there is a region free Australian release). This would have been the perfect time to bring it to Blu-ray, but the studio has at least done well with this remake. Its picture and sound presentations are very good and the disc includes a handful of legacy extras. Recommended.
2005
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Let's Get Sweaty Edition
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Unrated
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15th Anniversary Edition
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