Happy Gilmore 2

7.7/10 stinky bananas

All things considered, it's a pretty damn good sequel.

This movie takes a lot of swings, but I think they hit more often than not. For example, the following bits got huge laughs out of me, like the type of laugh where your eyes fill up with tears and you're audibly wheezing:

• drinking out of random objects (it wasn't funny the first three times he does it, but by the time he was unscrewing his rangefinder, I was crying laughing)

• golf cart crash

• calling Haley Joel Osment's character by the wrong name

• Benny Safdie's bad breath

• the caddie / Zalatoris bit (surprisingly, a good percentage of the real golfers were very funny)

• every scene with Shooter (he really stepped right back into those shoes without missing a step)

• John Daly drinking the hand sanitizer (again, it wasn't that funny when he first does it, but when he does it for the 19th time, I was cackling)

The "swing and misses", so to speak, did tend to fall very flat. For example:

• every scene with Kelce stunk (get that guy out of my face)

• every scene with Ben Stiller (hate to say it)

• some of the golfers are not meant for the big screen

• the brothers / sons are a bit much

In his old age, The Sandman has a tendency to get a little too crazy with the stories in his movies (e.g., Hubie Halloween, etc.), but he didn't do that this time. The story is simple enough. It never gets to the point where it's so ridiculous that it takes you out of the movie; there are clear parallels between the Maxi League or whatever it's called and LIV Golf. It makes for an easier bridge to gap between real and lunacy.

Bottom line is this... you're a loser if you don't like Adam Sandler. He makes movies for the sole purpose of hanging out with his family and friends and to make some people laugh. What a legend.

Film nerds and grumps are going to hate this movie, but us Sandmen will enjoy the shit out of it. See ya.