Adam Sandler completely crushed it together with his 1996 sports activities comedy Joyful Gilmore, which many years later remains to be beloved as among the best motion pictures of the ‘90s. That makes its sequel, Joyful Gilmore 2, each extremely anticipated and a dangerous enterprise. Now, because it hits the 2025 film calendar on July 25, critics are weighing in on the ultimate product. So is it a hole-in-one or will it make you wish to take off your skate and attempt to stab anyone?
The story sees Joyful Gilmore return to the golf course after almost 30 years to earn cash to pay for his daughter Vienna’s (Sunny Sanders) ballet college. Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald and Ben Stiller are among the many actors reprising their roles for the brand new Netflix film. In CinemaBlend’s overview of Joyful Gilmore 2, Corey Chichizola says it’s every little thing he hoped for, with loads of plot twists, cameos, fixed humor and an emotionally impactful story. He provides it 4 out of 5 stars and says:
What outcomes is a love letter to the unique film that may delight followers, that includes equal components coronary heart and comedy. Whereas it hits nostalgic beats with a continuous provide of snickers and easter eggs, there’s additionally an emotional story at its coronary heart.
Jeff Ewing of Collider agrees, score the film 7 out of 10. Adam Sandler skillfully balances the previous characters with the brand new, offering comedy and coronary heart in equal measure, the critic says. The multitude of cameos are enjoyable, but it surely borders on distracting at instances. Ewing concludes:
Joyful Gilmore 2 is humorous and has a refreshingly nostalgic novelty that does not merely rehash the previous, but does not lose it fully, both. It evolves Joyful (even when the setup is a tad contrived), however does not lose what made the character an attention-grabbing watch. We revisit previous characters and meet new, contemporary ones with their very own quirks. It is not excellent, but it surely’s a worthy successor to an Adam Sandler traditional with memorable scenes and features of its personal.
Kate Erbland of IndieWire is totally on board with Joyful Gilmore 2 (obtainable to stream with a Netflix subscription), grading it a B-. It’s not a hole-in-one, she says, but it surely sinks some strong photographs with wacky gags and stunning unhappiness:
[The story] places Joyful into some unusual areas, principally as an older man defending the normal golf world that when shunned him. Is that… ? Can it’s… ? Some maturity creeping into the Joyful Gilmore sequel? You higher imagine it, and whereas that may breed some good gags … it additionally provides a stage of maturity and really compelling nostalgia to all the outing. And never nostalgia as in ‘I acknowledge that reference from a film I beloved three many years in the past, isn’t that enjoyable,’ however within the truest sense, of reflecting again on the previous with actual longing.
Frank Scheck of THR doesn’t pull punches when saying that Joyful Gilmore 2 is a “horrible” film, retreading the unique with the identical actors, the identical soundtrack and fixed callbacks. The sequel is “moronic, witless and relentlessly vulgar,” in response to the critic, which is to say Joyful Gilmore followers will find it irresistible. He continues:
And so it goes, with almost each minute of the movie that includes a reference to the unique in a single type or one other. All of it feels extraordinarily lazy and self-indulgent, particularly Sandler’s tendency to forged almost everybody he’s ever labored with and even met. The cameos listed here are so voluminous that you simply want a cheat sheet to maintain up, though most of them barely make an impression.
Ethan Anderton of SlashFilm says Joyful Gilmore 2 takes an enormous swing however fully whiffs it by doing one thing unforgivable within the opening sequence from which it might probably by no means get well. The sequel is, per the critic, “a poor excuse for nostalgic comedy, and also you’d have extra enjoyable getting a colonoscopy with a rake.” Anderton provides it a 2 out of 10, writing:
Joyful Gilmore 2 is an absolute slog of a comedy that takes every little thing that made the unique film nice and regurgitates all of it into one thing resembling a Dodgeball sequel crashed into skilled golf outing. Gone is the quaint, grounded really feel of the unique Joyful Gilmore, and as a substitute, we get a technicolored parade of shoehorned callbacks sprinkled all through an asinine story that’s to date faraway from Dennis Dugan’s authentic comedy, you may marvel if it takes place in one of many parallel worlds of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
With an authentic film that’s thought of such a traditional, Joyful Gilmore 2 had a reasonably excessive bar to satisfy, so I’m not shocked that critics are having bother discovering frequent floor.
It appears like we are able to anticipate tons of jokes, cameos and callbacks, in addition to some fairly emotional story beats, and no matter how effectively all of them work, I don’t assume any variety of dangerous opinions would preserve followers of the unique from checking this one out. This sequel is now obtainable to stream on Netflix.