Throughout the 1990s, Adam Sandler went on a generational run of films.

Billy Maddison, The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer and many other movies highlighted the funny man’s career, but perhaps his biggest and most popular came in the form of a hockey player turned golfer, Happy Gilmore.

For decades, fans have quoted, parodied and mimicked many of the film’s iconic moments. From ‘Just tap it in,’ to Shooter McGavin’s finger guns, the film created a legacy of its own.

Now, 29 years after the first film was released, Happy Gilmore returns for a sequel, but does it deliver the same gut-wrenching moments as the original?

Put simply, no. Unfortunately and tragically, it does not.

Living a simple life off the back of a successful golf career, including five championships, Happy retires from the sport after accidentally killing his wife, Virginia, with a rogue drive.

Choosing to leave the golf life behind, Happy has been out of the game for about a decade.

Living with only his youngest daughter, Happy has spent all his money and built a reliance on alcohol. However, in hopes of supporting his daughter’s passion for ballet, Happy recommits to the PGA tour to pay her lessons.

The premise of Happy Gilmore is wacky and appropriately so. It dives into the ridiculousness of the original. But unlike its predecessor, it fails to be genuinely funny.

Most jokes seen in Happy Gilmore 2 are just retreads of the original and nowhere near as funny. Meanwhile, the film feels more like a cheap cameo-fest of Sandler’s best Hollywood friends and sports players than an actual film.

It’s akin to several TikTok videos stitched together with each video containing a different famous person. The jokes within them are mediocre at best, too.

The biggest laugh involves number one ranked golfer Scottie Scheffler referencing a traffic-related arrest in 2024. The issue with these references is that they are so niche that it becomes impossible for casual audiences to relate.

It’s also such surface-level potty humour. Fart jokes aren’t spared here and slapstick humour is front and centre. When referring to the first film, it’s so beloved because of how quotable and cleverly written it is. The difference here is that the new jokes aren’t clever and the best moments are cheap nostalgia that imitate the superior first film.

It’s clear Sandler films have a level of silliness to them, but the best ones don’t rely on cheap nostalgia; they create moments.

Moments such as Billy Madison’s academic decathlon, Water Boy’s “Gatorade is better” or even the “I eat pieces of **** like you for breakfast” in the first Happy Gilmore are all so clever and so distinct to their respective films, yet they are parodied here.

All for such cheap, unearned laughs.

It’s the equivalent of the studio thinking, ‘Oh, here’s the thing you loved the first time, let’s do it again but worse.”

Unfortunately, Happy Gilmore 2 is not a good movie and not very funny. It’s similar to a comedy sketch show more than an iconic Sandler comedy, and that sucks.

Happy Gilmore 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.