On July 25, Netflix premiered another movie with popular comedian Adam Sandler, as part of the actor’s long-term deal with the streaming service — this time it’s a sports comedy «Happy Gilmore 2». As you might guess, it is a sequel to the film released back in 1996, which told the story of a mentally unbalanced hockey player who had to change his hockey stick to a golf club. Did you find any reasons to laugh out loud while watching the movie — let’s find out in the review below.
Pluses:
the movie really has some funny moments, and this is the main thing for a comedy; some cameos can surprise you; a nice sunny picture; Ben Stiller's mustache;
Minuses:
the good humor at the beginning fades away in the face of further kink; the creators failed to move away from the typical Sandlerian comedy in its worst manifestations; the character of Julie Boven was given criminally little screen time;
«Happy Gilmore 2»
Genre sports comedy
Director Kyle Newachek
Starring Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, Ben Stiller, Haley Joel Osment, Benny Safdie, John Daly, Margaret Qually, Dennis Dugan, Steve Buscemi
Premiere Netflix
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
After the events of the first movie, Happy Gilmore continued his successful career in golf, married the beautiful Virginia Venit, and it seemed that nothing could spoil their happy life. But one day at a tournament, Gilmore accidentally kills his wife and becomes a single father with five children. He vows never to pick up a club again, and drowns his grief in alcohol.
This leads to bankruptcy, as a result of which the golfer’s grandmother’s house is again taken away from him, and Happy has to get a job as an ordinary supermarket clerk. But the salary there is definitely not enough to send his extremely talented daughter to the Paris Ballet School, so the clumsy alcoholic will have to pick up the club again and remember the skills that made him an outstanding athlete in the first place. Moreover, the future of classical golf will depend on Gilmore.
This is not the first time that popular comedian Adam Sandler has portrayed sports stars or related characters on screen. In addition to Happy Gilmore himself, we can think of American football players Bobby «The Waterboy» Boucher and Paul Crewe from the remake of «The Longest Yard», as well as the tired basketball scout Stanley Sugerman from «Hustle» (2022), where Sandler once again demonstrated his dramatic talent. This time, the actor pulls out a dusty golf club from the bins, even though 29 years have passed since the release of the forgotten original.
It is noteworthy that «Happy Gilmore 2» appeared almost simultaneously with the finale of another streaming project dedicated to the same sport — dramedy «Stick». What the hero there, played by Owen Wilson, has in common with Gilmore is that they are both old losers who have been published and are very much in the bottle. They also both have a tragic background, though they reveal it in completely different ways, given the different tone of the narrative.
Oddly enough for a comedy with Adam Sandler, the beginning of the story gave us a hopeful reason to hope for something more or less adequate, like the aforementioned «The Longest Yard» (2005). The first 30-40 minutes, which focus mainly on the drunkard’s return to fitness, set the mood not only for future victories, but also for something sane in terms of comedy. At the same time, the humor here, based mainly on physical comedy backed by catchy music, does not slip into the primitive clowning of the worst Happy Madison samples.
One of the most successful jokes is the change of orientation in the so-called «happy place» Gilmore’s — now, instead of fantasizing about a hot blonde in erotic lingerie with jugs of Canadian lager in hand, the 58-year-old protagonist has some other small joys of life. Yes, the humor is retired, but here you can see a witty metacommentary about how jokes were made before and that in modern representatives of frivolous genre of the scene ala Playboy video magazine is unlikely to see.
The same Ben Stiller inside a tiny ball (which at certain moments can pass for a glass!) is also quite funny. As is «Shooter» McGavin, which is read out by «The Shining» King and, as if that Joker in a minimalist outfit, dancing triumphantly on the stairs.
Unfortunately, all that good and really funny stuff pales in comparison to the typical Sandlerian banter that appears in full force in the second half of the film. To paraphrase one of the local sports commentators, the crazy movie becomes even crazier, and the level of blatant absurdity and crassness reaches its climax. Numerous cameos for the sake of cameos with professional athletes, commentators, comedians, and, finally, Sandler’s daughter, wife, friends (without Rob Schneider), etc. do not help the situation at all, and sometimes, as in the case of the appearance of one mega-popular rap artist, they make it even worse.
The accumulation of lowbrow madness and stupidity on the screen makes you not only stop laughing, but literally go nuts. The introduction of maxi-golf into the plot, which, like media football, is more of a show than a sporting component, does not add laughter to this comedy and certainly not the slightest intrigue.
The creators of the film, director Kyle Newacheck, who worked with Sandler in «Murder Mystery» (2019), screenwriter Kyle Gerligi, whose filmography is full of Sandler opuses, and the star of this show himself, started out having fun but ended up being sad. And when watching becomes almost unbearable, large pitchers of brew don’t seem like such a bad idea.
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