Considering past misbegotten sequels to Adam Sandler movies like Grown Ups 2 and Murder Mystery 2, I am not quite sure why it took the star three long decades to fire up one for arguably his best comedy and most memorable character, 1996’s Happy Gilmore. He even named his production company after it for chrissakes. But now fans who have waited a very long time for a second round with the angry but always watchable movie golf icon get a sweet payoff with Happy Gilmore 2.
Considering the mostly upbeat results here I am surprised Netflix held back critics until just a handful of hours before the film started streaming at midnight. There are more than enough LOL moments and multitudes of big-name cameos, as well as devotion to the original and exactly what fans of both the first movie — as well as golf itself — will eat up. With the world a mess right now, innocuous fun with good ‘ol Happy Gilmore is just what we need. It may not be in a league with Caddyshack, the greatest golf comedy ever, but it’ll do.
What’s most important in making it work to the degree it does is Sandler himself, who also produces and co-wrote the script with Tim Herlihy, who also teamed to write the 1996 original. He never goes over the top, silly as the situations can be, but rather keeps it grounded, and believe it or not with a semblance of a credible setup for Happy circa 2025.
Plotwise, we meet Happy at an all-time low. The now 58-year-old who went to golf’s highest peak winning title after title while being happily married and raising a young family of four boys, and finally even a girl, saw it all collapse around him when one of his tee shots accidentally veered into the crowd and killed his wife (Julie Bowen, in briefly and later heavenly flashbacks), sending him into a tailspin and alcoholic stupor. He now hasn’t picked up a club in 10 years, had his house and Porsche repossessed, and is barely scraping by working in produce at the local supermarket.
Given advice as to how he might make $330,000 by another once troubled ex-golf champ John Daly, who winningly plays himself and lives in Happy’s garage, Happy decides out of desperation to rescue his tattered clubs and go out on the course to see if he still has it, at least enough of it to compete in a senior Champions Tour tournament for a shot at some big bucks.
The scenes as he joins three amateurs (Eric Andre, Martin Herlihy, Margaret Qualley) on the local links are become a hilarious comedy of errors as Happy plays worse than a first-timer, that is until he gets his groove back by going to his “happy place” mentally. This leads to his joining the former champions, and the scene at their dinner is a delight featuring cameos from legends like Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Fred Couples and on and on. His return to the circuit playing with current icons like Scottie Scheffler (who just won the British Open last weekend), Rory McElroy, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Will Zalatoris (very funny) and more is also manna from heaven for golf freaks.
Complications set in with the emergence of the titular villain for golf purists, Frank Manatee (Benny Safdie), whose new creation, the tech-oriented Maxi Golf, threatens to wipe away 100 years of tradition and change the game forever. Trying to unsuccessfully lure Happy into the fold, Frank becomes a real nemesis and threat to the game, thus setting up a showdown for the big bucks between a team of five top PGA pros and five Maxi stars. When a golf cart disaster strikes Happy in the middle of a preliminary tournament to make the team, he not only loses the money after being fined half a million bucks, but also his chance to make the team — that is until the smug Billy (Haley Joel Osment) announces he is actually Maxi and thus his abandoned spot goes by default to Happy, setting up a golf match for the ages.
The cast here is enormous and includes returnees from 1996 including Ben Stiller as the slippery Hal, who now runs the AA (or Alkies) group Happy has joined to get off the bottle. There is also the notorious past main nemesis Shooter McGavin (Chris McDonald, in a great reboot of his character), who wins release from the mental institution just in time to change his old ways.
Among highlights of the new cast (and casting director John Papsidera has done a great job bringing this group together) is scene-stealer Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio aka Bad Bunny as Oscar, the busboy- turned-caddy for Happy, and some brief appearances by SNL breakout Marcello Hernandez, and even Travis Kelce, who has a brief memorable encounter with a bear after being painted with honey by Oscar in a dream sequence. The blink-and-you-miss-them cameos are almost dizzying and dropped in constantly breaking the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh wall for some nonsensical fun, which is all this movie aims to be. In this regard, Sandler has become a kind of new-age Bob Hope who once even had Arnold Palmer play through as it were in his 1960s African safari comedy Call Me Bwana.
In a nice touch, Sandler and company pay homage to some of the now deceased members of the 1996 film including a clever fight scene in a cemetery right above Bob Barker’s grave, as well as to Carl Weathers’ Chubb, Frances Bay’s Grandma and Richard Kiel’s Mr. Larson. Oh, and did I mention the Morris the alligator? RIP Morris. You are not forgotten.
Happy Gilmore 2 is dominated by flying clubs and balls, nonstop slapstick, gag after gag — with many working — but also some genuine emotion. None of this has to make sense, it just has to entertain us for a couple of hours, and on that scoreboard this sequel will make you quite happy indeed.
Producers are Sandler, Herlihy, Jack Giarraputo and Robert Simonds.
Title: Happy Gilmore 2
Distributor: Netflix
Release date: July 25, 2025
Director: Kyle Newacheck
Screenwriters: Adam Sandler and Tim Herlihy
Cast: Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Chris McDonald, Benny Safdie, Ben Stiller, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, John Daly, Haley Joel Osment, Jackie Sandler, Sadie Sandler, Sunny Sandler, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, Philip Schneider, Ethan Cutkosky, Conor Sherry, Kevin Nealon, Lavell Crawford, Kym Whitley, John Farley, Eric André, Martin Herlihy, Margaret Qualley, Keegan Bradley, Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Jack Nicklaus, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson, Will Zalatoris, Verne Lundquist, Austin Post, Marcello Hernandez, Travis Kelce, Eminem, Blake Clark, Oliver Hudson, Reggie Bush, Nikki Garcia, Becky Lynch, Tim Herlihy, Nelly Korda, Nancy Lopez, Boban Mfarjanovic, Paige Spiranac, Dan Patrick, Stephen A. Smith, Ken Jennings, Cam’ron, Scott Mescudi
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 54 mins
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