Whenever I hop on Twitter and I get past my usual algorithm of frat burners posting their Peter Millar shirts or an occasional death video that make my stomach turn from an account I don’t follow, I’ll see these big blue check mark film news accounts posting about casting for an upcoming film or a release date. Every so often, I run into an announcement from one of these accounts letting the masses know about an upcoming sequel to a movie that doesn’t need a sequel. Recently, it’s felt like an uptick, and when you see what’s hit theaters this year, you’ll realize I’m not being hyperbolic.
Some of these sequels are interesting, thought provoking takes on their predecessor, like 28 Years Later or Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Then there’s movies like M3GAN 2.0 and Karate Kid: Legends and Captain America: Brave New World which add nothing or almost retract the positive feelings you had towards the films they’re following.
In the case of Happy Gilmore 2, after I watched it, I began to question if I ever liked the 1996 original film. When I woke up the next day I thought that yes, I do like the original because it was a unique, funny comedy where it felt like Adam Sandler and Julie Bowen and Carl Weathers were giving legitimately good comedic performances. They were selling jokes and using physical comedy not as a crutch, but as a way to make the audience actually laugh. Past the comedic elements, it was also a Rocky style underdog story that viewers bought into.
That is not what you get in Happy Gilmore 2.
What you’re presented with in Happy Gilmore 2 is call backs to the original film that you might not remember if it weren’t for the fact that Kyle Newacheck added in the clip from Happy Gilmore that the scene’s were referencing. This wasn’t a one time thing, it happened from the start of the film to the end and to me, that feels like the director and producers saying “The audience won’t get this, so let’s hold their hand and make them get this.” It’s a snark way to make a movie and one that will never work for me. In part, it’s a large reason why I didn’t care for Jason Reitman’s film Saturday Night because there was far too much hand holding in anticipation that the audience would be a big gaggle of drooling apes who couldn’t think for themselves.
My other major issue was the influx of cameos. Don’t get me wrong, some of them worked. Scottie Scheffler leaning into his arrest was very funny and showed that he has an actual personality and isn’t just a lifeless terminator on the golf course. The same can be said about Will Zalitoris with a decently funny call back as the caddy that Happy Gilmore choked out in the first film. And arguably the highlight of the movie was John Daly as Happy’s roommate. He didn’t do too much, which was probably the right call. He sort of just existed and threw in one liners when needed and more times than not, his one liners made me laugh.
On the other side of the cameo coin, most of them felt too forced and attempted to be too whacky. Eminem as the son of the heckler from the first film, which again, you wouldn’t remember but for the clip being spliced into the film, was unfunny. Travis Kelce playing a rude waiter made acting look like a chore in his limited scenes. I’m just happy his dim, neanderthal of a brother, Jason, wasn’t in the cast. Among the other cameos that didn’t work for me was Kelsey Plum, who I have no use for, Post Malone, give me a fucking breaking, Rob Schneider, find a new schtick, Guy Fieri, which sort of worked as the loud mouth representative of the LIV adjacent villain but got old quick, and Alix Earle, who made my girlfriend happy but did nothing for me.
About halfway through the film, I felt like I was watching last years disastrously smug superhero film, Deadpool & Wolverine, because both Happy Gilmore 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine used cameos as a way to try and get viewers to clap their hands like seals. The majority of the masses however aren’t childish mongoloids and they want an actual movie, not a Super Bowl commercial.
I mentioned earlier how part of the magic that created Happy Gilmore in the 90s was the underdog storyline. I realize that you can’t go back to a narrative of Happy Gilmore wants to play hockey and finds his calling in golf, but it felt cheap that the story was simply Happy is down on his luck because his wife died and now he’s bad a golf, but he’s all of a sudden good at golf again. It felt both cheap and lazy for that to be the basis of the sequel.
As the story progressed, I wasn’t against the idea of Happy Gilmore 2 being a riff on LIV golf and its wonky rules to seem hip. With todays modern golf climate, it felt like the logical route to take when making a golf movie. But where I became immediately disinterested was when Benny Safdie’s character, who is the head of the MAXI league, reveals that the reason the MAXI golfers are so good is because of a broken bone in their lower body that lets them drive them ball further. Hacky, shit writing. And then their further attempts to make LIV look like a silly league with the made up MAXI league was having a guy play with a chainsaw and have the final of the seven holes have a tilting green was purely ridiculous.
If you liked Happy Gilmore like I did, I guess I recommend throwing it on as back ground noise to see some essence of nostalgia with Shooter McGavin and Hal L., but don’t expect to be entertained, or laugh, or even enjoy yourself.
Silver Screen Reviews 
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