It's interesting that Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are the two movies Adam Sandler named his production company after, as they are exact polar opposites in quality, despite having the same formula.
A Jerk With A Heart Of Gold must complete a competition. His main rival is a Jerkass and he falls in love with a hot, authority-driven blonde woman. Over the course of the film he meets interesting and funny people and becomes a better person.
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In Happy Gilmore, Happy's heart of gold is clearly established right at the start, with his love of his grandmother driving the plot. In Billy Madison, all we see is Billy playing juvenile pranks with his dumbass friends. We never know why he wants to do this - it's just assumed that he would.
In Happy Gilmore, Shooter's evilocity is clearly defined - he's a smug dick who tries to ruin Happy's life. Eric, the villain of Billy Madison, is a douche, but doesn't really give us any reason to think that he's less capable of running the company than Billy (apart from the stupid 'Business Ethics' speech). As a result, Shooter's karmic retribution is hilarious and satisfying, while Eric's is fairly pointless.
Character Development. Happy's development revolves around something physical that the audience can directly see him improving in - putting. Happy's putting directly ties into his Fatal Flaw - impatience. Best of all, his character development is, well, fuckin' hilarious. Billy's development revolves around him getting better at taking tests. This is visually boring. We see him being read the questions, and trying to answer them, and only when he's studying. The tests are just him writing, then waiting to get his results. It also doesn't tie into his Fatal Flaw, his lack of personal responsibility, and it doesn't really work well with Sandler's physical comedy.
Both films have flat, boring female love interests. However, in Happy Gilmore, Virginia falling for him makes sense, tying in with Happy's development into a better person. They have several scenes together which go to explaining why and how she's falling for him. Veronica of Billy Madison has one scene where she falls for him, and after that she's straight to taking off her clothes to help him learn. She's just a pair of boobs that talk occasionally.
Film Billy Madison vs Happy Gilmore
It's interesting that Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are the two movies Adam Sandler named his production company after, as they are exact polar opposites in quality, despite having the same formula.
A Jerk With A Heart Of Gold must complete a competition. His main rival is a Jerkass and he falls in love with a hot, authority-driven blonde woman. Over the course of the film he meets interesting and funny people and becomes a better person.
Compare: