Happy Gilmore 2 movie review: How sequel stacks up to original, every cameo
Loaded with nostalgia, golf, sporting, music and movie star cameos and heartwarming homages to the fallen, Happy Gilmore 2 takes a big swing, but does it land like the original?
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And that’s probably why, not 24 hours after watching the premiere of Happy Gilmore 2, I’m still not over the absolutely depressive opening of the movie.
Am I watching Happy Gilmore or Punch Drunk Love?
Hang on, remember when Happy’s mum “moved to Egypt where there’s not a rink for more than 1500 miles” because dad worshipped hockey? Oh, and when dad got killed by an errant hockey puck and Happy was sent to live with his grandma at Waterberry?
I just realised the first movie had a traumatic opening too!
At least grandma dressed like Gene Simmons from Kiss to cheer him up, right?
Anyway, I digress but, years on from the movie’s shocking opening scenes Happy, the drunk, has changed his name to Sad (not really). The family has moved into a smaller home and he’s basically being cared for by his four sons and doting daughter Vienna (played by his real-life child Sunny Sandler). The boys are all basically carbon copies of dad but, if you’re hoping for hilarity in the vein of Jim Carrey and his three boys in Me, Myself and Irene, you’re going to be disappointed.
Vienna’s story is central to Happy 2.0 — she’s a promising dancer who has won a spot at a prestigious dance school in Paris, and dad has to go back to golf to try to earn the $75k a year it’ll take to send her there.
There’s also a bit of art imitating life with ‘The Tour’ worried about a new, innovative, big-money competitor — the Maxi League. Think PGA v LIV Golf. They even have a high profile defector in the vein of a Dustin Johnson or Phil Mickelson (or Cam Smith, for the Aussie folk).
Anyway, long story short, Happy comes out of retirement, overcomes adversity and ends up pitted against the surgically enhanced Maxi golfers in a fight for the future of golf as we know it. The golf is crazy and the course is insane – think a 1000m par-4 and hazards that include snow and searing flames.
Not overly realistic, but kinda fun.
SHOOTER, NOSTALGIA AND NEW BLOOD
I’m not going to tell you EVERYTHING that happens in the movie, but I will say the only character as essential as Happy — his iconic nemesis Shooter McGavin — is back.
Not giving it away, but Shooter’s life has taken a surprise turn — although he still has questionable breakfast habits.
There are plenty of throwbacks to the original movie, with enough new twists to ensure a giggle.
Older Happy, now sporting a beard, is mistaken for Grizzly Adams in a scene with WNBA superstar Kelsey Plum, a play on the Shooter-Lee Trevino “Grizzly Adams did have a beard” schtick of the original.
OG Virginia clad in the white lingerie with two jugs of VB (wait, that’s my happy place) makes an appearance in Gilmore’s Happy place again.
ESPN foghorn Stephen A. Smith appears with a couple of typically ridiculous takes, shouting down the camera about Happy, the Devil and the electric chair — it’s supposed to be a parody, but what he says wouldn’t make his top-10 dumbest real-life takes.
The once ever-so-mildly-funny Rob Schneider continues to live off his good mate Sandler, wheeled out an obligatory “You can do it”.
Sandler’s mates are everywhere. There’s the nipple-tweaking, gibberish-spouting Cajun assistant coach from The Waterboy, that big dopey bloke with the cross-eyes who is in just about every Sandler movie is around and even Crazy Eyes Steve Buscemi pops up as the bad neighbour.
Confession time: the insanely-talented Margaret Qualley will always be Alexandra “Alex” Russell to me after her incredible turn in the series Maid (if you haven’t watched it, trust me), so it’s hard to watch her as a character with zero depth. Of course, she totally redeems herself in a scene involving a bunker and a classic Li’l Jon-Yin Yang twins banger.
Taylor Swift’s handbag Travis Kelce plays a waiter in the movie. He is about as funny as an AI generated NFL player-turned-pop princess’s husband-turned-actor: “That’s what she said.”
The blond, curly-haired caddie who Happy throttled early on in the original movie is back and all grown up — but he’s not a caddie.
Sandler’s bag carrier, this time, is played by some bloke who goes by the name of Bad Bunny. Wikipedia tells me he is known as ‘The King of Latin Trap’, whatever that is.
I’ve never heard a note of his music, but Mr Bunny, who plays Oscar in the movie, ended up one of my favourite characters.
He’s charming, funny and saves Happy’s bacon more than once. At one point in the movie, he visits his own happy place — and that involves Kelce, honey and a bear.
BRB, just spinning “I Like It” with Cardi B and J Balvin.
Continuing the hip hop/rnb feel, Post Malone is on board as a commentator who repeats the same line, Kid Cudi briefly pops up and there’s a hilarious Eminem cameo — more on that later.
UNCLE JOHN DALY AND THE GOLFERS
Outside of Tiger Woods, it feels like every single big name in golf appears in this movie.
From the legendary Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo to present day kings the ilk of Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Bryson Dechambeau and Scottie Scheffler.
They’re all instantly recognisable but Uncle John Daly steals the show as a tenant living in Happy’s garage.
Daly plays a piss-drinking, chicken wing munching, hand-sanitiser gulping, loveable larrikin — essentially the most true-to-life character in the entire movie.
Other golf identities who make cameos in the movie include: Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Fred Couples, Will Zalatoris, Keegan Bradley, Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson, Tony Finau, Retief Goosen, Jim Furyk, Lee Trevino, Paige Spiranac, Colin Montgomerie, David Duval,
Charley Hull, Collin Morikawa, Corey Pavin, Annabel Angel, Xander Schauffele, Nelly Korda, Wyndham Clark, Nancy Lopez, Charles Howell III.
He’s not a pro golfer but former child star Haley Joel Osment plays Happy’s nemesis Billy Jenkins. He’s still the same height as when he saw dead people in the Sixth Sense, just nowhere near as cherubic, the charm used up long ago in classics like Pay it Forward, Artificial Intelligence and Forrest Gump (remember Forrest and Jenny’s kid?).
REMEMBERING THE FALLEN
Four actors integral to the Happy Gilmore story had sadly passed away before the sequel was filmed but Sandler, co-writer and long-time collaborator Tim Herlihy and director Kyle Newacheck find fun ways to pay homage.
Carl Weathers died last year and was unable to reprise what was clearly his most iconic role — Gilmore’s one-handed mentor Chubbs Peterson … just kidding, ‘Dillon, you sonovabish’ … ok, ok Apollo Creed.
So they brought in Lavell Crawford to play Slim Peterson — Chubbs’ son. The Temu Chubbs even has one hand and he makes sure to ease the tension: “it’s all in the hips”.
“I believe that’s Mr Gilmore’s”.
Richard Kiel, the 217cm monster who played Bond villain Jaws, died in 2014, so Sandler turned to loveable 224cm former NBA giant Boban Marjanovich to honour Mr Larson’s memory.
Marjanovich plays Mr Larson’s son, who explains dad died after rolling onto the nail Happy shot into his head with a nail gun, before going on a nudie run up the fairway.
“You will not make this putt, Jackass.”
Like Weathers, Joe Flaherty, who played the iconic heckling fan whose simple sledge ‘Jackass’ almost derailed Gilmore, died last year.
Enter Eminem, transformed into his son, who spouts the famous Jackass line, gets in a bar from one of his own songs and his character arc gets no less crazy. It’s a scene-munching performance (it’ll make sense).
‘Grandma’ Frances Bay, whose acting career began prior to WWII, died in 2011, aged 92, but she still managed to make an appearance — at least in spirit, as an elderly woman, face obscured by, of course, a Kiss mask.
Ben Stiller’s turn as a nursing home orderly who straight up torments its residents — “you will go to sleep, or I will put you to sleep” — in the 1996 film remains one of the great uncredited appearances in comedy history.
He’s in the credits this time, as Hal L. Stiller. In my opinion — and this might be slightly controversial — Stiller is a hit-or-miss actor. He’s nowhere near as funny in Gilmore 2.0 as the dodgy Alcoholics Anonymous support group leader.
Hey, at least they made sure we got a ‘Mister Mister lady’ mention.
VERDICT
Playing off scratch due to its elite origins, we’re not quite in “talk about a hole in one” territory.
It’s both a help and a hindrance: the nostalgia and star quality ensures there are enough throwbacks to please OG devotees of the loveable ice hockey dreamer-turned-pro golfer and more than enough golf and broader cameos to satisfy sport fans and movie buffs alike.
Today’s ‘woke’ world has made comedy the toughest genre to truly innovate in.
Gilmore 2.0 is funny enough but it unfortunately lacks innovation — It’s either been done, or never to be done again.
That lack of potentially iconic lines and laugh-out-loud moments ensures any hope the sequel could hold a candle to the 1996 original, 29 years later, is nothing but wild fantasy.
Watchability score: Bogey, +1
Duffs it off the tee, recovers out of the rough but finds the bunker and can’t chip in for par.
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