20 2000s Movies Audiences Loved, But Critics Hated

19. The Longest Yard

There was a run through the mid-'90s when everything Adam Sandler touched turned to gold, turning out Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, and Big Daddy within a five-year stretch. Those times may have passed by 2005, but the man still had a lot of goodwill left with the mainstream cinema-goer.

Enter, The Longest Yard. It's far from the typical Sandler flick audiences were used to; it was less a goofy comedy and more a genuine sports movie with comedic undertones, and a surprising hit of emotion with the death of Caretaker (Chris Rock).

It may not be Sandler's highest-rated project of all time, but it was nevertheless a fun outing that rarely went any deeper than a game of football. As is often the case, though, critics were expecting a little more.

Certain aspects of the picture certainly haven't aged particularly well, and the characters weren't exactly complex or layered, but arguably one of the biggest things The Longest Yard struggled with was the inevitable comparisons to the original from 1974. Unfortunately, Burt Reynolds' shoes were a little too big for Adam Sandler to fill.