'LONGEST YARD' FULL OF OFFENSIVE INTERFERENCE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

`THE LONGEST YARD'' is the year's most unnecessary movie, a cartoon remake of Robert Aldrich's 1974 sports comedy that has been thoroughly dumbed down to suit star Adam Sandler's boyhood wish of pretending to be Burt Reynolds.

As unsuited as Sandler is to playing a former professional quarterback (``Waterboy,'' yes; onetime NFL MVP, no), the movie's biggest problem is its broad, idiotic sensibility (which, of course, is undoubtedly viewed by the studio as an asset, not a liability). The overriding goal seems to be to set some sort of record for the number of ``comic'' references to the joys of prison rape with a fixation on penis size running a close second.

While this may be the height of comedy for young men whiling away their days in their parents' basements eating nachos and watching their TiVo'ed ESPN, it makes for a much more limited experience for other members of the human race.

Yes, seeing steroid poster boy Bill Romanowski and former Dallas Cowboy wide receiver and party king Michael Irvin (minus the full-length mink coat) shamelessly mug for the cameras alongside a bunch of pro wrestlers offers a certain fascination (Irvin actually proves to be a better actor than Chris Rock, which is kind of like saying Mountain Dew is more refreshing than a urine sample), but the curiosity proves fleeting.

The Aldrich original actually had an idea in its head, using football in the prison setting to explore the savagery inherent in both the game and America's penal system. (Yes, Beavis, I said ``penal.'') Burt Reynolds was perfectly cast as Paul Crewe, the disgraced former pro quarterback who, at the warden's behest, puts together an inmate football team to face a squadron of Neanderthal guards and, in so doing, finds a measure of redemption.

While no one expects a Sandler comedy to contain ideas, it's not too much to expect it to include humor. Yet the best the filmmakers can do here is to cut and paste bits from the original and meld them to Rock's tired, race-based shtick, the aforementioned sodomy joke marathon and a bunch of redneck gags that Jeff Foxworthy would have rejected outright 15 years ago.

There's also the 69-year-old Reynolds doing a phoned-in (some things never change) Knute Rockne, 79-year-old Cloris Leachman embarrassing herself as the warden's oversexed secretary (!), James Cromwell playing the warden who towers over the Flutie-like Sandler and ESPN personality Chris Berman helpfully explaining every freakin' detail of the climactic game from the broadcaster's booth. (And, yes, Berman does use one of his groan-inducing name puns, calling Sandler's character ``Paul 'Motley' Crewe.'' Ugh.)

All this makes it all the more jarring when the plot calls for one of the characters to be dispatched to the Big House in the Sky. Given all that has come before, the resulting scene has the emotional impact of an anvil falling on Wile E. Coyote's noggin. Yet, it's played straight. We're actually supposed to feel something other than indigestion.

And, really, that's asking a lot. If you start making demands on your audience, that could create actual expectations. And that's the last thing that Sandler and his fun bunch need or want.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

THE LONGEST YARD - One star

(PG-13: crude and sexual humor, violence, language, drug references)

Starring: Adam Sandler, Burt Reynolds, Chris Rock, Nelly.

Director: Peter Segal.

Running time: 1 hr. 53 min.

Playing: Wide release.

In a nutshell: The year's most unnecessary movie.

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Photo:

Nelly, left, and Adam Sandler take the field in the remake of the football-in-prison comedy ``The Longest Yard.''