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Review: |
"I Know What You Did Last Summer"
capitalizes on the success of Wes Craven's superior "Scream"
by giving us another situation in which a group of teenagers
are being stalked by a killer out for vengeance. Written by
Kevin Williamson, writer of the script for "Scream," this
movie lacks any of the perks that its predecessor offered
audiences, save for a selection of jumpy thrills and laughable
gore that does provide some measure of entertainment. ***
The dribble behind all of this
mayhem begins in Southport, North Carolina, where a Fourth
of July celebration leads to chaos when four friends get a
little rowdy. There's Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), the brainy
goody two-shoes, her friend Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar),
the obligatory superficial blonde with a heavy bosom, her
boyfriend Barry (Ryan Phillipe), the typical wild-child who
likes to get drunk and lord over everyone, and Julie's boyfriend
Ray (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), shorter than Lurch but just as
brain-dead. ***
These plastic characters finds
themselves facing a crucial decision when they strike a man
crossing a cliffside road in the middle of the night (I live
on the coast of North Carolina; there are no cliffs), where
they contemplate their choice of going to the police with
the accident or dumping the body in a local marina for the
fish to take care of. Being the insensible teenagers they
are, they go with the second option, not stopping to think
that just maybe this event might haunt them psychologically
for the rest of their lives. ***
It does more than that, though.
Julie returns to Southport a year later to find that they
have all felt the pain of guilt, though pain turns to fear
when Julie receives an unmarked letter bearing the words,
"I know what you did last summer." Thus begins their ridiculous,
cliché-ruled journey along the downtrodden path of the teen
thriller, leaving no aggravating action unturned, no abundantly-used
plot device shelved. ***
Take the characters themselves,
for example. These are some of the stupidest teenagers ever
to walk onscreen in a horror movie; mind you, many of today's
teen horror movies boast stupid characters, but these take
the cake. In one scene, Sarah Michelle Gellar's character
is trapped in her father's store with the mystery killer,
yet instead of finding a place to hide, she runs through hallways
and small rooms, screaming like a wild banshee to alert the
killer as to her whereabouts. Not going to the police is another
thing; there would be no story if not for this, yet a little
police involvement isn't bad every now and then, and may have
served to better this bland thriller... perhaps a standoff
of some sort, or a wild chase, anything but what is actually
present. ***
This absence of smart characters
contributes to the movie's loss of any tension or suspense.
The killings are routine and predictable, as the movie sets
up who will die when, where, how, in what manner, and even
what weapon will be used by the killer, who dresses up in
a fisherman's slicker in the hopes of scaring the audience.
The mystery behind this man is no mystery at all, really;
anyone with any sense of reasoning will quickly deduce the
identity of the killer, yet the characters insist on ignoring
the obvious in hopes that a search for viable clues will provide
some meaningful entertainment. Nice try. ***
There are a few good jumps in "I
Know What You Did Last Summer," but the abundance of clichés,
obnoxious screaming, and silly plotting make this horror at
its most routine and unpleasing. Screenwriter Williamson employed
his "Scream" characters with a knowledge of horror clichés,
making them smart, sassy, and likeable; the characters here
have become what those characters learned from. ***
"I Still Know What You Did Last
Summer," if nothing else, should at least get an Academy Award
for Longest Movie Title of 1998. In fact, the title could
be a testament to the movie itself: unnecessarily long, cheesy,
and a big letdown as a sequel to a movie that is only slightly
better. The plot is pure contrivance for the conveniance of
putting its characters in unspeakably tedious situations,
the acting and characters are equally uninvolving, and the
overall message gleaned from this film is one that portrays
it as a pointless excuse for bloodletting and gore. ***
The movie picks up where the predecessor
left off, with a silly dream sequence that seems to belong
in a comedy spoof of these films instead of here. Julie apparently
has been haunted by these dreams for many months since her
last encounter with the killer from the first film, Ben Willis,
who fell off the boat in the end of the movie and was never
seen again. Until now, but more happens before then. Julie's
best friend, Carla, wins a trip to the Bahamas by answering
incorrectly to the question requiring the capital of Brazil.
Of course, given the mentality of this film, I wouldn't expect
too many people to know the right answer, and I guess the
filmmakers were counting on that, too. ***
Anyway, Julie calls up long-lost
Ray, asking him to go to the Bahamas with her, Carla, and
Carla's boyfriend Ty. Ray refuses her, but then decides to
surprise her. Of course, on his way to meet Julie at the airport,
he is set upon by Ben Willis, and ends up in the hospital,
from which he escapes and spends the rest of the movie trying
to reach the resort. That resort is Tower Bay, where the group,
along with newcomer Will Benson, who has it bad for Julie,
finds out that the resort is left entirely to them due to
the incoming of heavily inclimate weather. "This is our version
of winter," says the hotel clerk. So pretty soon, the rain
is falling, and so are the bodies, moreso than the first movie,
and much more gratuitously. ***
The movie really has nowhere to
go but down from here, relying heavily on gore, blood, and
useless plot twists to create what they hope will be a sense
of tension and suspense. No such luck. Yes, we do spend some
time wondering who is going to meet the fishhooked Ben Willis
next, but since we never get the chance to know the characters,
we never can care for them once they are killed, sauteed,
gutted, and what-have-you. There is never a moment in this
movie where you'll find yourself saying, "This is such a good
film," because there's never any reason to. What makes it
even worse is that the movie makes itself out so that it is
not necessary to see the first in order to get the second.
It spends so much time dwelling on the past that its concern
for its own events are missed by a longshot. ***
Nothing but contrivance for this
film as well, bringing us the same, tired situations that
its characters dwell in, going over the same old routine until
we feel like we've seen every horror movie known to man. Ben
Willis was supposedly killed in the ending of the first, and
even if he's alive, he missing a hand. Not a problem. Slap
a new hook on him in place of the severed hand, one that's
permantently attached, so he can kill quicker and easier.
Now the characters need to be placed in the most vulnerable
of positions at key points in the movie. All taken care of;
just send them to a secluded island paradise that is about
to experience a major weather crisis. Need a couple of simple
characters for extra bloodletting. Hotel management: 'nuff
said. Are you seeing a pattern here? ***
And what is with the secondary
characters of the movie, anyway? One of them is the waitress
in the hotel bar, who always seems to be giving us hints that
she may have something to do with the killings going on, but
trust me, thinking that way leads nowhere. And what about
that pot dealing freak with the dread locks? This is as hokey
a character as you can get, and never have I seen such a waste
of plot on such a stupid character (though I kept wishing
he'd hand me a joint to get me through the rest of the movie).
The character of Will is a wuss, enough said, and even when
it comes time for his major involvement in the plot, it turns
out to be one of the cheesiest and most contrived aspects
of the story. ***
I had a hard time trying to decide
as to whether or not this is one of those bad movies that
happens to good actors, or if they should be held responsible
for getting into it. Hewitt and Prinze, Jr, who reprise the
roles of the earlier film, should have known better when they
read the script that this material would not be sufficient
enough to live up to the standards, however low, set by the
first film. Brandy Norwood and Mekhi Phifer are the newcomers
in the places of Phillipe and Gellar, and Phifer is the most
amusing as the oversexed boyfriend who turns sexual frustration
into comedic relief; Brandy is okay on TV, but I think in
this case, a bad movie happened to her as an actress. ***
In watching this movie, I kept
thinking to myself, "People are actually going to like this."
Then I found myself thinking of the demographic group who
would gobble this stuff up and actually enjoy it. This is
going to appeal mostly to young teens who want to be more
like the older set of teenagers who have seen movies like
this, one of those "in-crowd" movies that makes you look popular.
To those who fit into this group, you're in for a sorely rude
awakening.
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