Review: Happy Gilmore 2 Offers Familiar Comforts, And There’s Probably A Golf Metaphor That Applies

I don’t understand golf, and I’m not about to start now. Nice to see Christopher McDonald, though.

Happy Gilmore is the best of Adam Sandler‘s early comedies. There’s some good stuff in that post-SNL, pre-Punch-Drunk Love era: The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy are great. There’s some trash, too; Little Nicky is about as funny as a mysterious dark patch on a chest x-ray. But Happy Gilmore is Sandler at his best: big-hearted and willfully puerile at the same time. I could never warm to spoiled man-child Billy Madison, but the amiable Gilmore, wannabe hockey pro turned schlubby golf legend, all to save his grandmother’ house? That’s a guy you can cheer for.

So it makes sense that Sandler, now deep into his ridiculously lucrative and creatively patchy Netflix deal, would return to Happy Gilmore. But the first film works because Happy is an underdog, and he got pretty much everything he ever wanted at the end. So, Sandler, his co-writer Tim Herlihy (who has written nothing but Adam Sandler vehicles) and director Kyle Newacheck (Workaholics) efficiently set the clock back to “misery”, killing off love interest Virginia (Julie Bowen) and plunging our hero into alcoholism and despair as he quits golf forever.

Bit of a bummer.

But there is light in his life in the form of daughter Vienna (Sunny Sandler), a talented dancer who could study in Paris – if Happy can cover the tuition. So, it’s back to the links and a new “extreme” golf tour, Maxi Golf, run by Benny Safdie’s sports drink entrepreneur, Frank Manatee; a new rival in the form of Haley Joel Osment’s arrogant pro, Billy Jenkins; and an old rival, as Christopher McDonald’s Shooter McGavin.

It’s all very familiar stuff, and lazily defaults to “remember this bit?” button pushing, but it’s an amiable enough time. It’s a better hang out movie than Sandler’s Grown Ups flicks, and those are meant to be hang out movies. I think that’s the key to Sandler’s appeal – he seem like a good hang. It’s not hard to imagine sinking a couple of beers with him – he’s got that everyman thing down pat, even as one of the most successful comedians of the last 40 years. The received wisdom is that his sets are an absolute blast to work on, and that comes through, even when the resultant film isn’t as fun as the production process.

That’s the case here. It feels mean to drag Happy Gilmore 2 for a lack of ambition – we were hardly gonna get a meditation on the price of success or second acts or anything like that – but you’d hope that the simplicity of the set up would allow for some real go-for-broke laughs. Comedy is subjective as all hell, sure, but Happy Gilmore 2 provides more warm smiles than belly laughs. I only laughed out loud once, myself. It was when Shooter and Happy were beating the living hell out of each other in the cemetery, just in case you think I think I’m too good for this stuff.

Happy Gilmore 2 works as a time passer and as a kind of victory lap for Sandler, and you’ll dig it if you dig him and his general schtick. But you’ll need to set your expectations appropriately – even old fans may find this a pretty rote effort.

Happy Gilmore 2 is streaming on Netflix now.