Netflix Movie Review: Happy Gilmore 2

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The sequel to “Happy Gilmore” (1996), this time around, is on Netflix, called “Happy Gilmore 2”. As with the original movie, this one is also supposed to be a comedy. For a movie comedy, why lead off the story with the sight of a flying golf ball hitting Happy’s wife, Virginia, played by Julie Bowen, in the head, killing her instantly? It’s hard to understand how two screenwriters, one of them Adam Sandler, would think that the start of this movie, which includes death and huge financial loss, would be considered funny by anyone. What the hell were they thinking?

Following his wife’s death, Happy suffers extreme financial loss. He has 4 sons and a daughter, Vienna, played by Sandler’s daughter Sunny. Adding to Happy’s many problems is that Vienna has been invited to attend a Ballet company in Paris, France, that costs 75K a year. To make money, Happy has to start from the bottom of the Golf profession, playing with low-level players on a very bad golf course. The best parts of both movies have always been the insane golf shots and the visuals of long drives down the fairway, with some other moderately funny physical comedy scenes. There are several flashbacks in this story, showing scenes from the original Happy Gilmore, to remind the audience of characters and situations from 29 years ago.

Due to a new crazy version of Golf, Happy Gilmore very quickly rises to the top of the sport of Golf (only in the movies) and has a chance to make enough money to pay for his daughter’s Ballet and dig himself out of being completely broke. The ending that has many scenes of the new version of Golf falls flat and results in a very unsatisfying ending to this mostly bad and surprisingly dark, unfunny movie.

There are also cameos of many long-retired gold greats, including Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino Jack Nicklaus, Fred Couples, Nick Faldo, Corey Pavin, and John Daly, who are more of a distraction and in no way save this film.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are mostly correct 65%, with my rating only 50% and a vote to miss this unfunny, too dark comedy movie.

Movie Review: The Fantastic Four: First Steps

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The new movie “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is different and unusual mainly for its proclaimed timeline of “Earth-828,” which is equivalent to the era of the 1960s within a retro-futurian version of New York City. The computer monitors and computers also seem to be from the 1960s, but the technology, especially for space travel, is initially from the current day and later from the future with speed-of-light spaceship technology. This of course, does not make sense. 1960s technology mixed with present-day and future technology?

This film stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards • Mister Fantastic (Rubber Man), Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, The Thing. The story involves a huge alien from another planet who wants to destroy the Earth and a silver woman who flies around on a surfboard.

The story has two parts where the Fantastic Four fly to the alien planet, trying to reason with the gigantic alien Galactus, played by Ralph Ineson. It turns out that Galactus with spare the Earth in exchange for the unborn child that is being carried by Storm. When they refuse to give Galactus the child, part 2 is the war on planet Earth between the four superheroes and Galactus. Once again, the special effects are either spectacular or very impressive, but the story is nothing special and definitely nothing new.

Overall, the acting is good from the four main stars and all of the other characters, with some cameos played by Natasha Lyonne and Julia Warner. Based on the money involved and the huge number of past and new movies that are within the Marvel Universe, I was hoping for a better movie, considering that the last two Fantastic movies were 10 and 20 years ago.

The Rotten Tomatoes this time around is a way off 89% with my rating a 75% and a small recommendation.

Movie Review: I Know What You Did Last Summer

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Far too often, it is hard to believe the movies that are chosen by executives to remake It is often difficult to understand the films chosen by executives for remakes or, in this case, a new sequel to the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” (1997). At its best, the original movie was a very stupid, poorly produced slasher movie that grossed only 125 million world wide. Through some demographic calculations and surveys based on the name recognition created from the original movie, the decision was made to try and make more money from the same basic idea about young people on a dangerous road who make a series of mistakes, and a young man dies.

This sequel did not have enough imagination to create a new idea, and once again, five people in their twenties are on the same kind of road overlooking a cliff, with one drunk idiot playing a game of chicken with oncoming cars at night, and once again, someone dies in a car accident. Why not think of something new? Why not have a new evil slasher character that kills people other than, once again, the faceless man in the dark raincoat who guts people with a giant fishhook? We saw this already, 28 years ago. Why do the same thing again?

This time around, there are five new characters in their twenties, Danica Richards played by Madelyn Cline, Ava Brucks played by Chase Sui Wonders – both of whom recently dated Pete Davidson. The other 3 actors involved in the car accident at the start of this movie are mostly unknown. The “hook” idea to save the box office for this bad movie is to bring back three of the main actors of the original 1997 movie, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., and a strange, misplaced dream sequence cameo from Sarah Michelle Gellar. The attempt to connect what happened in the first story with this new story failed, along with the absurd ending – an attempt to shock and surprise the audience with the unveiling of the killer. This attempt at shocking surprise turned out to be the worst part of this bad movie because it all made zero sense. The other bad part of the ending was the idiotic reappearance of people who were definitely killed in previous scenes, who for reasons unknown, are still alive despite being killed.

This time around, the critics on Rotten Tomatoes are correct with their very low 38% ratings for this bad slasher movie. I agree with this low rating and do not recommend this film. Hopefully, this is the last movie in this franchise.