Adam Sandler’s comedy is showing its age

Of all the dirty, rotten, down-low things Netflix has done, providing a gaping pit of gold coins for Adam Sandler to cannonball into like Scrooge McDuck might be the worst so far. When left to his own devices, Sandler’s style of comedy isn’t exactly — how do I put this kindly — pleasant to ingest in massive quantities. The comedian and actor made a name for himself yelling, doing voices and playing instruments on “Saturday Night Live,” turning the sketch series into a one-man variety show during his five-year tenure. Sandler’s brand of in-your-face, juvenile humor was rampant in the ’90s, popular with kids and kids at heart, for whom growing up was a “Peter Pan”-level nightmare. Sandler’s 1995 comedy “Billy Madison” is the most flagrant example of this childish style, so packed with immature gags that it threatens to burst, sending Nickelodeon-green slime everywhere. Still, its place in the zeitgeist is undeniable, and audiences wanted more. The following year saw Sandler’s golf comedy “Happy Gilmore” become an equally, if not more beloved, follow-up, eventually spawning the name for Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison, a few years later.

But when Sandler made a surprisingly effective dramatic turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch Drunk Love” in 2005, viewers saw a different side of the comedian. As it turns out, the slapstick performer has a surprising knack for quiet nuance. And though he’d continue to star in and produce comedies throughout the 2000s, viewers were always curious about Sandler’s next dramatic role. With his comedies, you’d more or less know what you were getting into. But with Sandler’s less histrionic roles, expectations had to be left at the door. The one-two punch of 2017’s “The Meyerowitz Stories” and 2019’s “Uncut Gems” left viewers thinking that Sandler might be turning over a new leaf, ready to flex his skills as a dramatic performer for more than just a short blip of time. But in 2020, Netflix and Happy Madison inked another four-film deal, meaning that the actor would be tied to the streamer — and its increasingly dour cinematic output — just when Sandler was finally settling into a more mature era.

Now, at the tail end of this deal, comes “Happy Gilmore 2,” a sequel reminding us just how far comedy has come, yet how little Sandler’s style has changed. The film is a narrative retread of its predecessor, packed to the brim with callbacks and cameos that seem intended to spark a brief conversation online before burning out entirely, not unlike most Netflix originals. By tapping Sandler, the streamer made a decision that was a great fit for their library, but an awful loss for the rest of us. Despite showing its age so plainly, Sandler’s brand of juvenile humor is perfect for a moment when attention spans are rapidly diminishing. Like the film’s title, the jokes in “Happy Gilmore 2” don’t require a single iota of thought, only a death-grip on nostalgia. And when the theatrical comedy is in jeopardy, revitalizing this type of juvenility for low-brow laughs, now tempered even further to be digested between phone scrolls, feels like a golf ball to the forehead.

As Amy Heckerling’s teen comedy masterpiece “Clueless” celebrates its 30th anniversary this month, the question of what makes a comedy from the nascent days of the ’90s truly timeless has been stuck at the front of my mind. “Billy Madison,” “Clueless” and “Happy Gilmore” were all released within seven months of each other. And though Sandler’s film targets different demographics than “Clueless,” there’s certainly a crossover between the audiences of all three, an intersection that has only widened in the three decades since. “Clueless,” once seen as a chick flick favorite, is now properly revered as a comedy staple, appreciated for its sizable contributions to the cultural lexicon. The fashion, the outfits, the dialogue, the Noxzema brand recognition; the mark of Heckerling’s film on the world is undeniable. Perhaps that’s also what makes a sequel in the vein of “Happy Gilmore 2” all the more inconceivable. Granted, the tragic death of star Brittany Murphy and Stacey Dash’s conservative crash-out also undoubtedly work against a “Clueless” follow-up. But Heckerling’s movie is so ingrained in our minds, so untouchable in its legacy, that a feature-length sequel would stand to anger even the most wistful ’90s kid.

The same can’t be said for “Happy Gilmore 2,” a film that seems to exist simply because it can. While the original movie has its noteworthy moments, none quite reach the ubiquity of anything in “Clueless.” Still, Sandler’s titular wannabe hockey star turned golf pro remains one of his most iconic characters, and that would make the film a stable ground to build on for a sequel that has a story worth telling. Instead, “Happy Gilmore 2” opts to recycle the same narrative beats of the first film, making the similarly reprocessed jokes feel even more stale. Like “Happy Gilmore,” the sequel finds Happy down on his luck, in desperate need of cash and turning to his preternatural ability as a golfer to remedy his problems. Along the way, an endless barrage of familiar faces appears. Some, like Ben Stiller’s cruel retirement home orderly Hal (now an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting leader with similarly nefarious intentions), are a welcome sight for extremely sore eyes. Others, like Kevin Nealon’s Potter, are there for one-line callbacks, making “Happy Gilmore 2” entirely dependent on its progenitor. But worry not, if you don’t recognize an actor reprising their role, clips from the first movie are haphazardly lobbed into the story to jog the audience’s memory. Sure, “Happy Gilmore” may be a classic, but can a film be truly timeless if its sequel has to pander so hard?

What’s even more egregious is that, on top of Sandler retreating to his funny voices and absurd violence, “Happy Gilmore 2” has a distinct trying-to-be-cool flavor that’s impossible to shake. (And, ironically, also boasts a cameo from Mr. “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?” himself, Steve Buscemi.) There are appearances from Travis Kelce, Bad Bunny, “Hot Ones” host Sean Evans and even Eminem, to name a few. While each cameo is lazier than the last, it’s a substantial supporting role from Benny Safdie — who, alongside his brother Josh, co-directed Sandler in “Uncut Gems” — that’s most grating. As Frank, the creator of a tech-forward system that stands to shake up golf, Safdie is left to play to Sandler’s whims, instead of vice versa. It’s an interesting enough role reversal, but Safdie’s comedic chops are far more complex than Sandler’s, and the result is a hero-villain dynamic where Safdie is forced to downplay his ability so as not to outshine the star, lowering the movie’s stakes exponentially. Safdie’s presence serves as an unfortunate reminder of how much the “Happy Gilmore” style of comedy has aged, and the kinds of movies that Sandler could be making right now if he were less focused on playing it safe with a dismal sequel.

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But despite his occasionally grating mannerisms and humor, Sandler has a persistent layer of charm that’s hard to detach from. That appeal, the inkling that there is something more earnest beneath the surface of all of the phallic jokes and sucker punches, is why he’s been able to capture audiences and hold onto them for as long as he has. With age, we’ve seen this softer side of Sandler more often, typically to great critical praise. But these roles are few and far between, remaining at a distance in favor of indolent stories that only echo the humor of Sandler’s earliest work. If it has any worth at all, “Happy Gilmore 2” will at least be irrefutable proof that, more often than not, the humor we loved decades ago will age. Making something timeless is a lofty task that not every film must aspire to. Sometimes it’s enough to be great just once, instead of trying to do it all over again.