‘Happy Gilmore 2’ Review: Adam Sandler’s Unpredictable Golfer Takes Nostalgia in a Different Direction
It’s no surprise that Kyle Newacheck’s much-anticipated sequel to Dennis Dugan’s early Adam Sandler comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opens on something of a down beat. After all, every good comeback story — a designation by which “Happy Gilmore 2” definitely qualifies — has to find our hero at some sort of crossroads, but damn if the film doesn’t kick off with a pretty audacious bummer. It’s not to be spoiled here, but believe us, Happy (Sandler) really needs a win, and there’s something impressive about Sandler and Tim Herlihy’s script using that as a jumping-off point.
The film’s opening moments zip through the highs and lows of Happy’s life since we last left him, from his continued success in both golf and sponsorship opportunities (that he started stumping for Trojan condoms after having four sons in a row with his wife is a great bit), to a personal tragedy that essentially threw his entire life off its axis. A triumphant return to golf? Yeah, sure, that sounds good, but “Happy Gilmore 2” isn’t afraid to go searching for a bit more pathos than your usual decades-in-the-making comedy sequel. Consider this: the first time we see Ben Stiller’s returning blowhard Hal, he’s leading a downmarket AA meeting.
When we meet present-day Happy, he and daughter Vienna (Sandler’s own youngest, Sunny Sandler) are living on the bad side of town, and the only piece of their everyday life that even remotely nods back to golf is pal John Daly (as himself, outrageous outfits in all), who lives in their garage. Happy is miserable, drunk, broke, and working at the local Stop and Shop, where his daily grind is only broken up by taking nips from increasingly insane flasks (a cucumber, a TV remote, and many more). Vienna, however, shows real promise in her own sport: she wants to be a ballerina, and God knows Happy doesn’t have the cash to send her to the fancy Paris ballet school that’s holding a spot for her.
Maybe Happy can make some cash playing a new kind of extreme golf for the cash-flush and utterly revolting Frank Manatee (an absolutely unhinged Benny Safdie), who thinks his “Maxi Golf” is the sport of the future, as long as that future is fueled entirely by bad energy drinks? Nah. Instead, Happy makes his way back to traditional golf in fits and starts, including an all-time bad round at the local municipal club with some nutty youngsters (Margaret Qualley, Eric Andre, and Herlihy’s son Martin) and a genuinely delightful getting-it-done montage.
This all puts Happy into some strange spaces, mostly as an older guy defending the traditional golf world that once shunned him. Is that… ? Can it be… ? Some maturity creeping into the “Happy Gilmore” sequel? You better believe it, and while that can breed some good gags — more Maxi Golf plot points to come — it also adds a level of maturity and actually compelling nostalgia to the entire outing. And not nostalgia as in “I recognize that reference from a movie I loved three decades ago, isn’t that fun,” but in the truest sense, of reflecting back on the past with real longing.
Yes, we’re still talking about “Happy Gilmore 2.”
The film is packed with cameos of all kinds, and audience mileage will definitely vary, simply based on who they’re not only excited to see, but who they actually recognize. Old golfers, young podcasters, Kansas City Chiefs fans, and just about everyone in between is served here, to say nothing of the many callbacks and returning stars from the first film.
But that’s also where things get a little, well, wistful (no, really). In the nearly thirty years since the release of the first film, a number of its stars have passed away, including Joe Flaherty, Bob Barker, Carl Weathers, Richard Kiel, Frances Bay, and even Morris the Alligator. That’s all baked in, and while not always successfully (three of those characters are ultimately revisited by way of the use of on-screen sons, who provide tenuous fill-in work), there’s something to be said for how the film doesn’t look away from those implications. Time has marched on, and not everyone has continued on that walk.
And, yes, it is also often quite funny. Most of that humor comes care of Sandler, who slips back into Happy with something like grizzled ease, and seems to have not lost a trick on what makes the character both so funny (his rage, his imagination, his fashion sense) and so easy to care about (his rage, his imagination, his fashion sense). Returning nemesis Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald, just as game as Sandler) enters the film as a bonafide nutjob, but there’s plenty of laughs to be found on his road to redemption. Of the new stars, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny shines as Happy’s confused new caddie, Oscar, and “SNL” standout Marcello Hernandez literally runs off with one of the film’s funniest scenes.
That tension between Happy growing older and maturing into the kind of guy who would go to bat for “regular golf” eventually leads to the film’s primary showdown: Happy and a cadre of real-life golf superstars (Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau, all a little stiff but absolutely playing ball here) going up against Frank’s wacked-out Maxi Golf upstarts (including Haley Joel Osment as a medically altered baddie).
Can tradition win the day? Can Happy get his swing back? Why does this golf course have a frozen section? These are all big questions, if occasionally funny ones, and “Happy Gilmore 2” attempts to answer them with humor and a touch of sadness. More often than not, it makes the shot. Thirty years on, that’s not too bad of a comeback.
Grade: B-
“Happy Gilmore 2” is now streaming on Netflix.
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