I joined CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies coming to theatres including the friends and family of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” the grip it and rip it sequel “Happy Gilmore 2” and the dark rom com “Oh, Hi!”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Happy Gilmore 2,” the Netflix sequel to Adam Sandler’s much loved 1996 golf comedy, begins with the sports legend in a bad way. “Remember Happy Gilmore?” asks newscaster Pat Daniels. “He’s making news on the golf course again, but not the good kind.”
Broke and unwilling to play golf after a tragedy during a tournament that plunged him into alcoholism, he’s a t rock bottom. When his daughter Vienna (Sunny Sandler) needs tuition for a prestigious dance school in Paris, he must pull his life together and pick up his old golf clubs. “There’s only one way to make that money fast,” says Happy’s brother Johnny (real life golfer John Daly). “Grip it and rip it.”
CAST: Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, Benny Safdie, Bad Bunny, Ben Stiller, Dennis Dugan, Kevin Nealon, Sunny Sandler, Eric André, Jim Downey, John Farley, Marcello Hernandez, Oliver Hudson, Scott Mescudi, Haley Joel Osment, Kelsey Plum, Margaret Qualley, and Nick Swardson. Directed by Kyle Newacheck.
REVIEW: There are probably more celebrity cameos in “Happy Gilmore 2” than actual belly laughs, but I doubt Sandler’s fans will care. A mix of heart, rage and silliness, it’s a familiar underdog story that captures the spirit but not the magic of the original.
Fan service is the name of the game.
A tsunami of flashbacks, callbacks and refurbished jokes from the original, it’s like a cover version of “Happy Gilmore” or an echo from 1996 emanating from the screen. The more familiar you are with the original, the more enjoyment you’ll wring out of the sequel. Casual viewers may be left in the dark, even though director (and professional pickleball player) Kyle Newacheck does everything possible to remind you of Happy’s former glories.
Still, at the heart of it all is Sandler. Almost thirty years later he’s still able to play the rageaholic Gilmore as a tightly wound col ready to spring at any time. “I always power my drives the old-fashioned way,” he says of his unique golf swing, “with rage.”
The intensity is good for a laugh, and he still has a way of stringing words together in the most insulting way ever, but there’s more to Happy than the temper that so often gets him in trouble. Sandler’s natural likability doesn’t actually smooth down any of the ironically named Happy’s rough edges, they are still there, but because of his sincerity he’s an easy underdog to root for. It doesn’t feel new, but it does have a certain amount of charm.
With its surfeit of cameos, returning characters and Sandler movie regulars, “Happy Gilmore 2” seems like the kind of movie that was more fun to make than it is to watch. Some will find it lazy, pandering to Sandler’s fans without offering anything new, but for hard core aficionados of Sandler’s 90s comedies, it’s a blast from the past.
Like “Starman,” the 1984 Jeff Bridges movie about an alien who returns to Earth in the form of a heartbroken widow’s late husband, a new film is an out-of-this-world exploration of grief.
In “I’m Totally Fine,” a new dark comedy now on VOD, Jillian Bell plays Vanessa, a young woman struggling to clear her head after the sudden death of her best friend and business partner Jennifer (Natalie Morales).
Alone at the rental home, where she was planning a party to celebrate the success of their shared soft drink company, she is startled when someone—or something—who looks exactly like her late friend turns up in the kitchen. The strange situation becomes even stranger when new Jennifer (Morales) says she is an extraterrestrial, loaded with all of Jennifer memories, sent to Earth for forty-eight hours to study civilization. “Jennifer remains deceased,” says the species observation officer, “I am simply an extraterrestrial who has taken her form.”
Over the next two days, reluctantly at first, Vanessa undergoes tests and begins to understand the meaning of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s words, “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
“I’m Totally Fine” is an undeniably weird odd-couple movie about the power of connection and the importance of letting go.
Bell is understated as she cycles through Vanessa’s stages of grief. “It might be fun to see how unstable I can get,” she says. Her world is inside out, but as alien Jennifer looks on, making notes—”Human has turned anger on herself.”—that actually help Vanessa punch a hole into the melancholy that hangs over her like a veil.
The far showier role belongs to Morales. As a monotone alien who is often bewildered by humanity, her unabashedly odd performance becomes endearing as she becomes the catapult for Vanessa’s catharsis. It’s a trick to find the balance between quirky and compassion, and Morales nails it.
Despite its odd story, “I’m Totally Fine” doesn’t go anywhere you don’t see coming, but the performances bring some real humanity to the alien premise.
