“Nostalgia is overrated†grumbles a character near the end of “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” It’s a line designed to show that the makers of this long-delayed legacy sequel know what they’re doing — that they’re satirists skewering I-Love-the-’90s attitudes with a double-edged sword (or, as the case may be, hook).
Such self-reflexive defence mechanisms are probably inevitable with a project like this, and the best thing that can be said for Summer 2.0 is that it succeeds in making its original source material feel, if not like a genuinely big deal, than at least a primal scene worth returning to, chaperoned by a set of now middle-aged ex-teen stars ready and willing to show they’re in on the joke.
For the record, it takes nearly an hour of screen time — and plenty of plot development — before “I Know What You Did” trots out Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose Julie James adorns this particular cinematic universe in the same fashion as Jamie Lee Curtis in the recent “Halloween” series: as a wizened survivor who’s reluctant to re-enter the fray.
She’s a welcome presence and so is Freddie Prinze Jr. as her estranged boyfriend Ray, who’s stuck around town to manage a restaurant and provide exposition for the younger generation.
Jennifer Love Hewitt is a welcome presence in “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
Matt Kennedy/Sony Pictures via The Associated PressThe bones of the narrative are sturdy; the problem is that the slicker-clad serial killer who menaced Julie and her friends back in 1997 is not exactly a horror icon on the level of Michael Myers, and there’s very little excitement in seeing him (or whoever is lurking under the hood) ply his bloody trade. No matter how much screenwriters Sam Lansky and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (who also directed) try to cram contemporary signifiers into the story — murder podcasts; TikTok lingo; a copy of “The Body Keeps the Score” — the prevailing feeling is one of obligation.
To give credit where it’s due, Robinson has done a good job in terms of casting, getting strong work from Chase Sui Wonders as Ava — an anxious, morally upright Zoomer analogue for Julie who blanches when her own batch of BFFs haplessly repeat the events of summer 1997 by accidentally causing and then deliberately covering up a fatal car accident — and especially Madelyn Cline, who somehow manages to make her pampered, astrology-addicted, character Danica into something more than a blonds-have-more-fun punchline.
There’s very little excitement in seeing the slicker-clad killer ply his bloody trade in “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”Â
Matt Kennedy/Sony Pictures via TNSDanica’s cheerful resilience in the face of certain doom isn’t just a running joke: it’s one detail of many that suggests that Robinson and Lansky are trying to give their slasher a contemporary feminist slant (exhibit B: Julie drinks out of a mug labelled “tears of the patriarchyâ€).
All of this would be well and good if the ideas about distaff solidarity and toxic masculinity were given room to breathe among the clichés, but the film’s construction is too mechanical for that. There aren’t really great kill scenes or gore shots here either — just a series of basic, workmanlike jolts, which, as usual, obey the laws of diminishing returns (although one dream scene does create a surreal atmosphere).
Nobody is expecting “I Know What You Did Last Summer” to be innovative or original, but when the best its makers can muster up is some basic competence lubricated by those aforementioned dollops of nostalgia, it’s worth wondering whether any of this was worth doing in the first place — or, judging from the predictably brand-extension-friendly coda, worth doing again any time again soon.
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