johnke.meHappy Gilmore 2
The trailer for this made it look like this was just going to be a low-effort reheating of the jokes of the original Happy Gilmore. And, yes, there are a lot of callbacks to jokes in the first film (often with the actual scene from the original film spliced in). But the film (weirdly? bravely?) immediately paints itself into a narrative corner to force it out of its comfort zone and address the fact that it’s 30 years since the first film and a lot of its dumb shit wouldn’t really make sense in the context of a middle-aged man or in the context of society in 2025. As an example, one of the more problematic sequences in the original was the “happy place” scene which is sexist and juvenile. Here it’s been updated to be more sensitive and age-appropriate. And it’s still so stupid (complimentary) and still has that Happy Madison touch and it had me wheezing.
And that’s basically what this whole thing is — a gentle, emotional and compassionate take on nostalgia that works more often than it doesn’t and is probably the best straight-up comedy I’ve seen on Netflix in a long time.