Happy Gilmore 2 (2025) Review

“Jackass!”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Considering Adam Sandler made a sequel for Grown Ups so fast, it’s kinda crazy none of his 90s classics didn’t get one sooner. Thankfully, he came around with the legacy sequel we never thought we’d get until now.


PLOT


2025’s Happy Gilmore 2 follows the titular golf player hit rock bottom after his original success. He got to have five children with his wife Virginia Venit (Julie Bowen) which included five boys and one daughter: Gordie the eldest (Maxwell Jacob Friedman), Wayne (Ethan Cutkosky), Bobby (Philip Fine Schneider), Terry (Conor Sherry) and Vienna the youngest (Sunny Sandler). Happiness was interrupted when Happy accidentally struck his wife with a drive so hard it kills her. Grief causes him to succumb to alcoholism and lose his grandma’s house after mistaking a repo man to be a thief. Now, he lives in a smaller home with Vienna while the boys had to move out. Happy gets inspired to try golf again to pay for his daughter’s ballet school in Paris that costs $75,000 yearly. His first game back goes so bad because his alcoholism causes him to crash a golf cart that gets him fired from his supermarket job and must complete an alcohol treatment program in order to get all charges. Sadly, his program leader is led by Hal L who now abuses authority towards other people in the program by making him do his own house chores. Once Vienna encourages him to take rehab seriously, he wins enough games to join the next Tour Championship. With a new brand of golf dubbed ‘Maxi Golf’ created by CEO Frank Manatee who he turned down joining, getting a lot of popularity, he challenges Manatee to a game of five players of his own against five others representing Maxi Golf. He then hires the recently fired busboy Oscar to be his caddie and he ends up winning three rounds until the fourth takes place on Mother’s Day, as him remembering his wife breaks his sobriety, resulting in him going sixth. But with Billy Jenkins (Haley Joel Osment) jumping ship to Maxi Golf, Happy is enabled to join the team. He does get enough money to pay for the ballet school, only to lose it due to expensive fines from his relapse. Having been released from psychiatric care by Manatee, Gilmore’s rival Shooter McGavin calls a truce, only after a quick fisticuffs, to warn him Mack Golf players are cheating by having their liolumbar ligiment removed to increase driving distance. He joins Happy’s team alongside fellow golf icons: Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka & Scottie Scheffler. Overtime, they’re all trained by Slim Peterson (Lavell Crawford), son of Happy’s late mentor Chubbs. On the day of the matchup, Billy’s team includes younger players such as: Harley (Oliver Hudson), 8 Ball (Reggie Bush), Flex (Becky Lynch), and Screech (Fernando Marrero). While Scottie gets disqualified and Brooks gets injured, Shooter subs to tie the game at 2-2. The final round takes place between Happy and Billy where Frank alters the green too impossible for the protagonist to putt. Despite the new obstacle, both men make a last minute bet: If Billy wins, Happy must join Maxi Golf but if Gilmore wins, Frank must meet all his demands that include a new car, open a restaurant for Oscar, get his grandma’s house back and pay for Vienna’s ballet school. With Oscar’s help, Gilmore is able to defy the odds and get what he needs. Three months later, he celebrates his ongoing sobriety and surpassingly, a member of his support group named Charlotte (Sadie Sandler) exposes Hal to be a con artist and gets him arrested. Frank discontinues Maxi Energy Drink when discovering it has caused health issues. After sending Vienna and the boys to Paris, promising to visit after the British Open, the film ends with Happy seeing Virginia from above telling him he’s okay before walking home.


THOUGHTS


Nostalgia has been a heavy drug in the 21st century and it’s kinda crazy it took so long for Happy Madison to take advantage of their backbone to get a kick out of it. Then again, patience is the key to success because although it is far from better, Director Kyle Newacheck gives a right amount of a good time you’re expecting. Like before, the sport of golf ain’t taken too serious, but you know enough to respect whatever rules are acknowledged. A lot of the laughs go to all the celebrity cameos which isn’t a bad thing since this is the trademark you gotta expect from Happy Madison at this point. You gotta be lying if you say you didn’t smile to Rob Schneider telling Gilmore he can do it in his happy place, Steve Buscemi be a wacky neighbor as Pat, John Daly be so bad at math that likely explains him living with the Gilmores or see Eminem be a genuine hater as Donald Floyd Junior, son of the heckler from the first film who gets a worse comeuppance than Hal, that is getting eaten by alligators thanks to the boys defending their dad. The fan service even dials up to eleven because it just begins with Ben Stiller dialing it up as savage as we remember Hal being, it was sweet to see him run away in shame much like how Shooter did when he lost. It’s even a trip for Robert Smigel to return as the IRS guy now lawyer and Kevin Nealon as Gary Porter who instigates worse than before. And speaking of which, it was clever for his fight with Happy to be homage of the fight with Bob Barker, who was surprisingly buried in the same area as all the other deceased characters. Surprisingly, I did have some laughs with Happy’s sons matching his anger, Guy Fieri randomly hosting the climactic game and Post Malone being a guest commentator, but I couldn’t believe how genuinely funny Bad Bunny was as Oscar. Visibly, he was more interesting than the previous caddies from the first film because he has his own aspirations he hopes to achieve and Happy gives him a chance because he relates to struggling. Little did we think his own place would be torturing his ex boss (Travis Kelce). Having said all of that, I think this movie is gonna be as much worthwhile like past comedies because it teaches new viewers the value of perseverance as well as maintaining the joy in what you do. Adam shows Happy as a man who is filled with inner regret since one simple accident became so severe that no one could’ve been prepared for. It bothered him that the thing that was supposed to save his own childhood destroyed his empire and the longer he saw it that way, the more it ate him up believing it would always be his fault. With one dream reminding it never was, it was enough for him to go over the mountain in doing right by his daughter who deserved more than what he already had. Little would we all expect part of his redemption would include finding amends with one old flame while trying to deal with a new one. Christopher McDonald showed that Shooter arguably had just as much of a bad downfall if not worse compared to Happy because he’s spent the rest of his life alone, unable to accept someone was naturally better than him at the time. He found his solace overtime because he came around seeing he was another guy who had a different form of passion. In my opinion, they had to fight it out in order to move forward because it went both ways at the time they put each other through hell. Knowing this, Frank Manatee was worse than him because Benny Safdie portrayed him as one who had zero passion to begin with and only reached out to Happy for clout. Gilmore did the right thing turning him down originally, no matter how depressed he was, because he still had enough pride to ignore the wrong deal as his wife taught him. He even enhances said pride when giving his old rival a moment to shine. The fact Mantee had the worst comeuppance compared to McGavin shows how there will always be consequences to those who don’t respect the generations that pave the way for the world you want to be part of. With Happy getting his kids taken care of the way he meant to, it goes without saying he can continue living up to his own name. This film ain’t too bad on its own when you choose to not overthink it, but it doesn’t really excuse most of the things that didn’t make much sense. For starters, I don’t understand why Happy didn’t even try hockey again before or after his wife died. I mean his fame could’ve gone a long way if you think about it, and it’s all the more surprising the boys didn’t have nepotism on their side like past celebrities. I don’t even get why the young golfer Steiner (Eric Andre) doesn’t notice Happy passed out on the caddy. Just because you’re in awe meeting a celebrity does not mean you can’t pay attention to things like that. And since Frank was the one that got Shooter out of the institution, it’s weird neither him or anyone from the institution gave him an unreal since it was raining on his way out. While I still respect Happy not selling out to Frank to begin with, it’s still a trip he never reached out to his veteran golf pals for money before he moved forward in golfing again. Of all things, asking financial help from friends is nowhere as bad as selling out. It then felt like a stretch for Stephen A Smith to have strong animosity towards him to the point he wished he was locked up for good. If this is his way to say he don’t like golf, that’s messed up. While it was pleasing for Drago Larson (Boban Marjanović) to show support for Gilmore like his dad did, it was quite dumb that he didn’t give his mom a heads up that Virginia died. If he knows him that well, that should’ve been discussed way before attending the game. Lastly, I could pick on how the boys don’t go to jail for committing manslaughter towards Donald Jr., but I scratch my head the hardest over how Happy never met Slim before now. If he gotten over what happened to Chubbs, I don’t see the reason for the two to not meet before. Other than that, Happy Gilmore 2 will remain the most fun legacy sequel you could ever from the comedy genre for still letting loose in the absurdity. If you got Netflix and love these kind of movies, see this as soon as possible.