The Longest Yard is inexplicably faithful to its inspiration, the buffoonish 1974 Burt Reynolds comedy. It’s pandering, puzzling and downright idiotic. Adam Sandler takes over the Reynolds role of Paul Crewe, a former professional quarterback who is sent to prison, where he leads a team of Neanderthal convicts in a game against their guards (Reynolds,

Shot in black and white, with laborious dialogue and wooden acting, this straight-faced tribute to the sci-fi horror flicks of the 1960s is fun for a while, but it soon turns dull, then stale. These are actors trying to be bad, which is far less entertaining than genuinely bad acting. In the end, Skeleton is

Starsky & Hutch accomplishes something truly unique: It has more funny actors than actual laughs. Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell and a rejuvenated Jason Bateman all appear, but the two stars in particular are clearly coasting. Director Todd Phillips (Old School), meanwhile, can’t decide whether his movie is a spoof of the

Operating under the apparent belief that every generation needs its own insipid teen comedy, Warner Bros. Pictures has remade 1987’s Can’t Buy Me Love, in which a dorky teen (Nick Cannon this time) pays the most popular girl in school to date him. Sure, the earlier Patrick Dempsey flick has its defenders – most likely

This dreadful piece of dreck, about a perpetual big man on campus (Ryan Reynolds) in his seventh academic year, arrived within two months of fellow collegiate comedies Slackers and Sorority Boys, meaning Hollywood was pumping out lame teen vehicles faster than I could dismiss them. Still, here goes: If you added up the good jokes

Transamerica stars Felicity Huffman as a man awaiting a sex-change operation who suddenly discovers he has a 17-year-old son. Once you get your bearings there is actually far less than meets the eye here. Everything about the movie feels gimmicky, including Huffman’s mannered performance. Less a woman than an awkward compilation of “womanly” affectations, Huffman’s

Bill Murray continued his study of disillusioned men in dire need of jump-starts with this story of an aging ladies man on a road trip to visit four former flames. He would seem to have found the perfect pairing in director Jim Jarmusch, whose stone-faced comedies share with Murray what can only be called an

How appropriate that a comedy about the alleged sport of dodge ball is as mean-spirited as this hilarious farce. As one character says, dodge ball is a game of “violence, exclusion and degradation.” Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller face off as opposing team leaders – Vaughn’s is made up of fitness misfits, Stiller’s of fitness