Joyful Gilmore 2. (L to R) Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio as Oscar Mejias and Adam Sandler as Joyful Gilmore in Joyful Gilmore 2. Cr. Scott Yamano/Netflix © 2025.
From Joyful Madison Productions, Universal Photos, & STX Movies, Joyful Gilmore 2 is the sequel to the crash golf (and a bit hockey) comedy, Joyful Gilmore, that genuinely cemented its lead actor, Adam Sandler, as a bona fide, bankable megastar. The fashioned 1996 film modified into once a success at the field region of labor, incomes 3.5x its budget one day of its fling, creating a cult sensation that has created a few years-long bonds with fans of Sandler and golf alike.
Recognizing Sandler’s god-tier comedy plot and penchant for making rewatchable movies with memorable characters, Netflix signed the Sandman to the first of loads of four-portray deals aid in 2014. Since that time, Sandler has starred in 12 movies for the streamer whereas producing loads of others below his Joyful Madison banner.
But Sandler’s movies own taken a special shape since the old Joyful Gilmore film almost 30 years ago. Following a fantastic high-tail of largely wide hits & cult classics, starting with Billy Madison in 1995 during the 2nd Drew Barrymore collaboration 50 First Dates in 2004, Sandler’s movies started to be identified for his impressive sequence of hilarious capacity and never-ending amount of megastar cameos more than the everyday of jokes, characters, & adorable silliness in his most effective work.
Now it’s 2025. Sandler’s ultimate film character is returning to our lives, however what roughly film will he be coming into into? Will bringing aid Joyful Spark a return to create for Sandler and his longtime writing partner, Tim Herlihy, or will or no longer it’s a nostalgia play guided by the brand new playbook of title recognition & megastar sightings over quality?
Discovering out the mile-long solid list and gazing the trailer, one also can moderately assume that the latter is undoubtedly in play. While we can own the return of co-stars equivalent to Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, & Ben Stiller, we would possibly perchance gaze the likes of 10+ present & extinct professional golfers at the side of Jack Nicklaus and Rory McIlroy, three mainstream rappers, loads of soccer gamers, a few sports actions broadcasting personalities, & even a character from The Waterboy (attempting no longer to destroy all these folks for you all).
The trailer also ends the build apart my overview begins. The closing shot of the trailer sees Shooter McGavin (McDonald) at remaining coming face to face with Joyful following the fallout of the first film. In that transient bump into, Joyful brings aid the “ingesting pieces of sh*t for breakfast” line from the first film like that scene befell the old day barely than almost 30 years ago. When I seen that, I straight away acknowledged “I hope that isn’t genuinely in the film”. Appears to be like, no longer simplest is it IN the film, it EMBODIES the film’s whole spirit.
Joyful Gilmore 2 is an echo, a duvet tune, a clip worth masquerading as a film; the film is so nostalgic for itself with nothing new of substance to provide its legions of fans.
The fashioned film modified into once about Joyful’s evolution from an offended hockey player who defined himself by his rage to a golfer who can hear, adore, & retain watch over his emotions ample to procure on the route and off. The lifestyles classes from an unparalleled supporting solid headed by Bowen & the unhurried Carl Weathers are the correct spine of the fashioned tale, one thing sorely missing in this new film.
The actual person battling for his grandmother’s home has been modified with an alcoholic dad reeling from a loss HE CREATED desiring to ship his daughter to ballet college; the adore & strengthen of Virginia, Grandma, & Chubbs has been modified with a largely a ways-off strengthen from his early life, idol like from other golfers, & a cozy refined redux of Shooter McGavin; Shooter’s extinct villain feature now lies in the create of Benny Safdie’s detestable breathed CEO character Frank Manatee and his Maxi Golf league crew making an strive to interchange golf for the more serious. Toss in a billion characters performed by a spread of celebrities, non-actors, & his succesful however no longer outstanding real lifestyles family and also you salvage a bloated, unfocused, unoriginal slog with a severe lack of emotional resonance.
HAPPY GILMORE 2. Adam Sandler as Joyful Gilmore in Joyful Gilmore2. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
While many of these capabilities are laborious to swallow, especially whenever you own gotten the template to success of the fashioned staring you in the face, the real tell is that it’s simply no longer amusing ample to beat its shortcomings. Sandler’s 2025 version of Joyful is a bland mixture of concern, alcoholism, & occasional bouts of rage on the route. He’s no longer evolving, he’s no longer finding out, he’s inviting making an strive to salvage aid on the horse after a loss we as an target audience truly didn’t desire or query for (especially in the most effective plan of how it befell). There’s no longer powerful room for humor in that. The supporting solid has some situational laughs infrequently with the uncommon comedic actors battling laborious for cloak time over golfers & other non-actors. Travis Kelce, Eminem, & Hostile Bunny ought to no longer be laying other than real performing capacity in any film, let by myself a legacy sequel with high expectations.
As a wide (however sensible) Sandler fan in his early 40s who roots for his comedies to be better than they are and applauds his proficient performances in his more prestigious dramatic movies as of unhurried, I truly wanted this film to work. With the fashioned writers penning the script, the creator of “Workaholics” at the aid of the digicam, & a returning of fan favorites, I thought this film had no longer much less than a high ground with a shot at recapturing among the greatness. But sadly, just like the Lynyrd Skynyrd tune playing on the whole in the background of these movies says, those expectations are “long past with the wind”.
Gape Joyful Gilmore 2 If You Cherished Joyful Gilmore Grown United states2 The Waterboy The Longest Yard (2005) Hubie Halloween MVP of Joyful Gilmore 2 Jon Daly & Steve Buscemi
One in every of the issues that made the fashioned Joyful Gilmore amusing (and masses of of the early Sandler movies in whole) modified into once its use of runt feature silliness. The maid in Billy Madison, the “Mista Mista” girl from Joyful Gilmore. The extinct man in the bar in The Wedding Singer. These items topic in the amusing tapestry of a successful Sandler film.
In this one, John Daly is Joyful’s hand sanitizer ingesting home pet, and Steve Buscemi is his pirouetting neighbor who drinks Listerine and pees in his mailbox, the closest approximations to this a necessary feature as which you would possibly perchance perchance salvage in this film.
Sequels are laborious. Legacy sequels 3 a few years apart are even more durable. Joyful Gilmore 2 can’t match the fashioned, the expectations of a sequel, or the competence of a contemporary studio comedy. Don’t query past greatness. Presumably query a lawful addition to his Netflix film filmography.
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