Julie James returns to Southport to help a new bunch of youngsters who are being picked off one by one by the Fisherman.
It’s been almost 30 years since the original I Know What You Did Last Summer hit cinemas in 1997 and it is now making a comeback with a legacy sequel of the same name.
Featuring a new set of young Southport residents, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s sequel once again kicks off with our main characters being involved in a car accident that results in the death of an unknown man. They leave the scene and pretend like nothing happened.
The main story is set a year later, when our Julia James substitute, Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), returns home for her best friend Danica (Madelyn Cline)’s bridal shower and reunites with her friends Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) and Teddy (Tyriq Withers).
Danica receives the classic “I know what you did last summer” warning note, and soon enough, all hell breaks loose, with the Fisherman and his sharp hook coming for everyone involved in last year’s incident.
Desperate, Ava tracks down Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) – the survivors of the ’97 Southport massacre – and asks them for help.
With legacy sequels, there is a difficult balance to strike. You have to honour the originals and deliver the nostalgia, but present enough new ideas so you’re not copying the original entirely.
Robinson doesn’t quite get the balance right. Except for the final act (which we’ll come back to), she sticks too closely to the tried and tested formula and gives us too much of what we’ve seen before, even though this isn’t a reboot.
For example, the inciting incident that opens the film could be anything, but it is once again a car accident on the same bend as before. She has tweaked the circumstances to make it slightly different, but the changes actually weaken the whole premise.
However, she throws her loyalty to the original out of the window with a wild final act that will be very divisive. After following the rulebook so closely for the majority of the film, she takes a bold, shocking swing.
While you have to respect her for taking such a big risk, the reveal doesn’t make a ton of sense and is poorly explained.
Out of the new bunch of characters, Outer Banks star Cline stands out as the rich and privileged Danica (this film’s answer to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Helen Shivers). She does her best to make the forced and unnatural dialogue work with her amusing line deliveries.
Of course, it’s a delight to see Hewitt and Prinze Jr. back as their legacy characters. Hewitt’s Julie doesn’t have much screen time, but her contributions make sense for the story.
IKWYDLS has clearly taken inspiration from the 2022 legacy sequel Scream in the way it introduces new characters, incorporates old ones and balances the fresh story with the established formula.
But unfortunately, IKWYDLS has never been able to match the quality and excitement of Scream, and that trend continues here.
In cinemas from Friday 18th July.
By Hannah Wales.
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