Let’s face it, most are suckers for nostalgia. Given that, here are the cliff notes to 1996’s box office hit Happy Gilmore. Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore, a wannabe hockey player, complete with anger management issues, and the IRS is about to seize his grandmother’s house unless he can come up with $270,000. Meanwhile, Happy accidentally discovers he can drive golf balls 400 yards using his hockey swing. This causes former pro golfer Chubbs Peterson (played by the late great Carl Weathers), who lost his hand to an alligator, to mentor Happy and persuade him to join the PGA Tour to earn money.
However, Happy’s wild behavior and lack of etiquette clash with the elite of the golf world. Then, there is Shooter McGavin, the obnoxious tour favorite, who sees Happy as a threat and tries to sabotage him. There is even a cameo from The Price Is Right’s Bob Barker, where they get into a legendary fistfight with the game show host during a celebrity tournament. In case you have been under a rock and have not seen, Happy Gilmore had a definitive end, so that was that…until recent times.
Providing more profound insight, in May 2024, Netflix announced that it was resurrecting Happy Gilmore with Sandler. Of course, in the three decades, sadly, we have lost Carl Weathers (who played Chubbs), Frances Bay (who played Grandma Gilmore), Bob Barker (who played himself), Joe Flaherty (who played the infamous heckler) and Richard Kiel (who played Mr. Larson, Happy’s towering ex-boss turned golf fan). Fear not, none were forgotten in this outing.
Coming back in unlikely sequel Happy Gilmore 2, released July 25, 2025 exclusively on Netflix was Sandler, Julie Bowen as Virginia (Happy’s now-wife), Christopher McDonald as Shooter (who mentally broke after the first), Ben Stiller as Hal L. (who now abuses AA members he presides over instead nursing home residence), Dennis Dugan as Doug Thompson (the head of the professional golf tour), Kevin Nealon who was Gary Potter (the eccentric golfer who once taught Happy to “block the bad energy”), Allen Covert who was Otto (Happy’s loyal, homeless caddy, now a spiritual guide of sorts), and John Daly as himself, this time, not just a cameo, but a key ally in Happy’s comeback. Meanwhile, Rob Schneider is back as the tricycle-riding cowboy from Happy’s Happy Place.
Newcomers to the party are Benito Antonio Martínez (also known as Bad Bunny) as Oscar Mejías (Happy’s busboy-turned-caddie with heart and hustle), and Benny Safdie as Frank Manatee, the shady sports drink mogul behind Maxi Golf. He is also joined by his real-life daughters, Sunny Sandler as Happy’s daughter, Vienna Gilmore, and Sadie Sandler, as a sweet girl from rehab named Charlotte. Meanwhile, Haley Joe plays a cocky young golfer named Billy Jenkins and Lavell Crawford as Slim Peterson, Chubbs’s son, with a prosthetic hand.
There are also celebrity cameos from Travis Kelce, Eminem, Post Malone, Kid Cudi, Marcello Hernández, Margaret Qualley, and Adama’s wife, Jackie Sandler. Of course, it would not be a Happy Gilmore film if real golfers did not make a showing, so Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie Scheffler, Tony Finau, Jack Nicklaus, among many more, pop up. Lastly, we get the random additions of Steve Buscemi as Bad Neighbor Pat, Eric André, Martin Herlihy, Oliver Hudson, Kevin Nealon, and Guy Fieri.
“Still swinging. Still screaming. Still Happy,” says the official tagline. They aren’t giving anything away. However, if you read the cast, you saw some Sandlers in there. Two Sandler daughters and his wife play prominently in the film, and their scenes together are adorable. You can see they favor him, but they are cute. Given that the movie is a family affair, let us examine the themes at play.
So, everything is going well for Happy…until it isn’t. Then, he has to come out of retirement to pay for his daughter’s tuition, so that he can fulfill her dream. And, there, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart of the movie. Go can go so far as to say Sandler is not playing Happy when he interacts with his kids.
Nonetheless, it was mentioned that we lost several players between movies. With all of this considered, Happy Gilmore 2 honors them through flashbacks, tributes like headstones, and similar sequences. Also, look for Richard Kiel’s son playing Mr. Larson’s son.
Happy Gilmore 2 also allows our characters to age, so it grapples with aging and mortality, portraying Happy as a father, mentor, and reluctant symbol of tradition. Both films explore mortality and the accompanying chaos and complexity. Again, we laugh and shed a tear within seconds, because Sandler can flip that switch so easily. Resilience would be a great descriptive word for the movie.
Then, there is the social commentary that contrasts tradition with spectacle, where classic golf is pitted against Maxi Golf, a neon-lit, TikTok-fueled parody of the sport. It literally takes the strategy and skill out of golf, or it inhibits cheating with mechanical greens that can shift with a switch’s flip.
Some have complained that Happy Gilmore 2 features too much fan service and is a nostalgia-driven money grab. If that is the case, they did not watch the movie. The key themes are aging and legacy. In the first movie, all Happy wanted to do was save his grandma’s place. Now, he finds himself back on the green, making his daughter’s dream a reality, which carries a thread, but it is also a story of character development. The callbacks, more often than not, pay tribute to the aforementioned lost cast.
Upon its release, Happy Gilmore 2 ranked first on Netflix’s top 10 English-language movies list and garnered over 46 million views in three days. It is also the biggest US Netflix film debut of 2025. This is all extremely impressive, considering the numbers are limited to Netflix subscribers only. Who knows what Happy Gilmore 2 would have done had it had a traditional box office release? With that in mind, Cryptic Rock gives this sequel 5 out of 5 stars.
){kind=link}
No comment