I was a big fan of Happy Gilmore when it was released all those years ago in the 90's and even though I will admit that it is a very poorly produced film with tons of stupid aspects to it and a completely impractical story and even lackluster special effects, it is still something that stands out in my mind because it is just so Adam Sandler.
That guy has made hundreds of millions of dollars and making bad films that somehow everyone goes to see and Happy Gilmore is likely the one that truly put him on the map as someone that can be in just about anything and it is going to make a ton of money.
In fact almost all of Sandler's films make BIG money, even the really really stupid ones. I appreciate his serious films and think Sandler is a pretty amazing serious actor. But his serious roles don't make money and one of his only huge flops is Uncut Gems which lost at least $50 million while in the meantime Jack and Jill which might be one of the worst movies ever made by anyone, made $50-70 million in profit.
So I think that if people go into Sandler movies knowing exactly what they are going to get, that is what they get. Happy Gilmore 2 was never going to be amazing and they stuck to the same formula that they had in the first one.
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The story is told to us pretty rapidly at the start, and is likely in the trailer so this is not a spoiler. Happy has been enjoying the spoils of victory and has gone on to win the Golden Jacket of the tournament that is definitely not the PGA many times and in the meantime has made so much money that he lives a life of luxury. Then, tragedy strikes and he suddenly finds himself broke with the famed Grandma's house getting taken away from him again.
A string of things happen and he finds himself in a position where it is necessary for him to take up golf again and as you would expect, at first he is terrible at it but by doing things like going to his "happy place" and reuniting with a bunch of people from the first film, he finds his former glory.
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The cameos are fun and man oh man do they do a lot of throwback to the original including using a lot of footage from it in order to remind people why such and such person on screen is important. For nerds like me I needed no such reminders but ok, I get why it is there.
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Seeing Shooter McGavin back on screen was a lot of fun because without that film would be even know who Christopher McDonald is? I wonder if it bother him that he has been in many films and a bunch of TV shows, one of which saw him nominated for an Emmy but he is bet known as being someone who "eats pieces of shit for breakfast."
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Basically, if they were in the original movie and they are still alive, they figured out a way to get them into the sequel. In a couple of instances they managed to get some people that are not alive IRL and get them into the movie anyway.
This also seems to have been a pet-project for Sandler to try to get his kids involved in the movie industry as three of his children star in it as well. Two of them are quite obviously related to him, the other one, not so much.
I don't look at this as nepotism even though it clearly is. I mean, if you are related to Adam Sandler and you want to be in films you are going to get to be in films. He owns the damn production company after all.
The professional golfers that are in Happy Gilmore 2 are probably the most impressive to me because they actually do a pretty great job of acting for the most part especially John Daly, who was always one of my favorite real life golfers because he would smoke and drink booze on the courses, while on TV. He plays a role of a washed-up drunk and well, that probably wasn't too much a stretch for him to get into character.
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Netflix doesn't normally release how much their films cost to make but by looking at this one I would guess that it definitely wasn't cheap to make. The production value is very good and this is impressive because you can't exactly fake a golf course and hundreds of fans being there to watch a game. Netflix claims it cost $30 million to make but I'm not buying this for a second. If they did do it for that little, well color me impressed.
Should I watch it?
let's be honest here: This movie is not groundbreaking or even particularly good. It is super predictable and follows the exact same formula as the first one. For anyone unfamiliar with the first one, or the rise of Sandler in the 90's this film will likely seem incredibly stupid. But for those of us that were there when it happened and understand the inexplicable Sandler-craze of the 90's this is one piece of nostalgia bait that you really don't want to miss. It is what it is and for me, it was fun enough and not much more.
The only legal way to stream this at the moment is via a Netflix subscription