Happy Gilmore 2 (dir. Kyle Newacheck)

by Jack Martin | Jul 25, 2025

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 117 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 25 July 2025

WHO’S IN HAPPY GILMORE 2?

Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Dennis Dugan, Christopher McDonald, Kevin Nealon, Ben Stiller, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, Sunny Sandler, Kym Whitley, Ethan Cutkosky, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, Philip Fine Schneider, Conor Sherry, Lavell Crawford, Blake Clark, Eric André, Jim Downey, John Farley, Marcello Hernandez, Oliver Hudson, Scott Mescudi, Haley Joel Osment, Margaret Qualley, Benny Safdie, Nick Swardson

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Kyle Newacheck (director), Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler (writers, producers), Jack Giarraputo and Robert Simonds (producers), Rupert Gregson-Williams (composer), Zak Mulligan and Patrick Capone (cinematographers), Brian Robinson (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Retired golfer Happy Gilmore (Sandler) returns to the game…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON HAPPY GILMORE 2?

Of Adam Sandler’s earlier comedies, before he all too happily settled for the intolerable man-child schtick that even he got tired of after a while, the general consensus is that Happy Gilmore is among if not the best. It’s certainly got plenty of dumb and obnoxious moments, many of which would go on to define Sandler and the output of his production company Happy Madison (partially named after this very movie), but it benefited strongly from a sweet and endearing nature that made us care about Sandler’s titular irate golfer, and at points was genuinely very funny.

For all its faults, and there are undoubtedly quite a few, this is something that Happy Gilmore 2 attempts to replicate with as much earnestness as it can, without feeling too much like a decades-too-late sequel that simply goes through the motions. Unfortunately, Happy Gilmore 2 is a very, very big fan of the original Happy Gilmore, and it shows in an often awkward and self-congratulatory manner that derails an otherwise passable follow-up.

Now under the direction of Kyle Newacheck (taking over from original director Dennis Dugan), Sandler’s Happy Gilmore is living the dream when we first meet him: he’s a top golfing ace, married to his love interest Virginia Venit (Julie Bowen), living in his late grandmother’s house, and a father to a handful of kids with as many anger problems as their father. However, much of that is swiftly taken away in a rather fateful opening montage, leaving Happy a depressed and rampant alcoholic forced to relocate to a neighbourhood where Steve Buscemi freely pisses into a mailbox, and stuck in a menial supermarket job.

He’s eventually motivated to return to the world of golfing when his daughter Vienna (played by real-life daughter Sunny Sandler), an aspiring dancer, is accepted into a prestigious academy with alarmingly high term fees, which winning the championship would handily provide. But that’s not all, as he’s also fighting to save the sport itself, which is in danger of being overtaken by a bizarre new league run by the sleazy Frank Manatee (Benny Safdie), and so Happy must use every available resource of help – from his new caddy Oscar (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio aka Bad Bunny) to even his former nemesis Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) – to win the game and save the day.

I’d say that it’s worthwhile revisiting the first Happy Gilmore film before seeing this new one, but there’s really no need as this film catches you up within minutes on what happened previously. Not only that, but anytime that there’s a callback or reference to a joke, character, piece of set decoration et al from the original, the movie will pause to show how they played out in that movie, like it’s supplying its own clips for the inevitable YouTube compilation detailing all the film’s easter eggs.

Furthermore, this is a movie that thinks so highly of its predecessor, and its title character, that it will frequently stop to compare him to the various greats of golfing (some of which appear here, but more on that in a bit), or treat him like a beloved rock star who can do very little wrong in the eyes of spectators and fellow contemporaries. It’s a film that definitely likes to stroke its own ego, convinced that the original was so good that it will spend most of its own running time trying to convince you of the same, but as a result it struggles to stand apart from what came before, leaving it a sequel that’s stuck being something too obsessed with the past that it often forgets to be something of its own in the present.

While its overly keen fondness of the original film is a distracting annoyance, Happy Gilmore 2 does manage to preserve a fair chunk of the heart and sweetness, and even some of the laughs, that made the first film an endearing favourite. Sandler, who also co-wrote the film alongside fellow returning co-writer Tim Herlihy, keeps the outlandishness to a minimum, certainly going over-the-top in parts but not to grossly obnoxious levels like most of his other comedies, leaving room for tender moments that more often than not bring out this character’s more likeable side, even when he’s drinking heavily from bottles disguised as everyday household items (a rather cute recurring gag).

The film isn’t hugely funny, but there are a few moments of slapstick and the odd line of dialogue that do earn a chuckle or two, and Sandler himself can still get a laugh from some of his overblown outbursts. There are even some giggles to be had from the hordes and hordes of cameos throughout the film, many of which are famous golfers and other sporting professionals trying to sound natural in front of a camera, while occasionally there’ll be some that are much more out of left-field, like Post Malone who randomly shows up as a commentator, Margaret Qualley and Eric André as a pair of golfers, and perhaps most bizarrely of all Eminem in a callback to a memorable character from the original that leads to perhaps the film’s most ridiculous scene (and that’s saying a lot).

It’s all a bunch of dumb nonsense, but so was the original and it turned out just fine, while this one certainly has its moments, and more importantly has its heart in the right place, but again is just too distracted by how much it loves that first film to really take things in a new enough direction. Fans of that movie will certainly enjoy Happy Gilmore 2 just fine, though newcomers or anti-Sandler viewers will see this as more of a swing and a miss.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Happy Gilmore 2 tries to replicate the heart and sweetness of the original, and sometimes it does thanks to some endearing moments from star and co-writer Adam Sandler, but constant throwbacks and references to the original film render it an awkwardly self-congratulatory mess.