I am not a huge Adam Sandler fan — there are at least half a dozen of his comedies which I have never seen — but some of his movies are quite entertaining and have genuinely grown on me over time.  One of those is the golf comedy Happy Gilmore (1996), perhaps one of his cornerstone projects (his company is “Happy Madison,” a combination of the two hits Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison).  Ironically, the villainous threat in this belated sequel, is pretty much what he did to the sport himself in this comically violent, edgy comedy.

Kyle Newacheck’s film finds championship golfer Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) almost a broken man, working menial jobs to keep a roof over the tiny home where he lives with his four sons and one daughter.  When that daughter, Vienna (Sunny Sandler), needs money to finance her ballet education in Paris, Happy decides to return to the one success he once had — golf.  Lots of training and practice puts him back at the PGA Championship, where he hopes to finish high enough to finance his daughter’s education.  But fate has other plans for Happy Gilmore — and his bitter rival, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald).

The nostalgia factor is off the charts for this movie, with references, in-jokes and appearances from characters from the original film (and their kids) all over the place.  That definitely helps hide some of the rough parts, of which there are many.  The second half involves a whole other story, the emergence of MAXi Golf, almost a vaudeville experience of professional golf, meant to entertain the young attention-deficient crowd, and Happy’s somewhat surprising stance that he favors the old school.  Wacky is the word for MAXi Golf, and it ain’t pretty.  Sadly, the wilder this story gets, the less interesting it becomes.

Co-written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy, the script takes some decidedly weird turns, starting with the fate of Virginia (Julie Bowen), Happy’s wife and mother of his five kids.  Happy’s boys are rather cringey, too.  And while some of the returns from the first film, twenty-nine years ago, are welcome, a few are really not.  Underneath all of this, of course, is a Sandler hallmark — the importance of family, and loyalty to that family.  That hallmark really helps push past some of the not-funny moments, and it inflates the cute and funny stuff that makes this perhaps unnecessary sequel worth watching.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  10 August 2025.