It often seems like there are two Adam Sandlers walking the earth. Sandler One is the populist clown, titan of film comedies such as Happy Gilmore, Click and Grown Ups – the man who, over the past 30-odd years, has built himself an empire of the lowbrow. Then there is the seldom-seen Sandler Two – a performer of craft, depth and credibility, who emerges every so often to star in critically acclaimed auteur projects such as Uncut Gems, Punch-Drunk Love and The Meyerowitz Stories. Always these two Sandlers wrestle for dominion – and never the twain shall meet. This, at least, is how the strange phenomenon of Adam Sandler is often framed.
At a glance, Happy Gilmore 2, released on Netflix last Friday, fits snugly into the Sandler One bracket, what Roger Ebert once dismissed as “those moronic comedies”. The film is a sequel to 1996’s Happy Gilmore, in which the Sandman plays a golfing savant with rage issues; the sequel was produced as part of a multi-film deal with Netflix. (It’s a deal that has kept Sandler largely out of cinemas and on the streaming site for the past decade, a partnership estimated to have earned the actor half a billion dollars.) Like many of his films, Happy Gilmore 2 is a broad, spoofy comedy, riddled with celebrity cameos and slapstick gags. Reviews have been middling in a way that’s typical of Sandler’s Netflix era: The Guardian described it as “strictly for the fans”, while The Hollywood Reporter called it “an exercise in fan service”. It is a film in which a character played by Eminem gets torn apart by alligators (for laughs). Need I say more?
