“I Know What You Did Last Summer” - Still?

With the success (I use this term loosely) of the Scream franchise’s reboot, and the profitability of scary movies in general, it was inevitable that another bygone horror franchise would be brought back from the dead. Afterall, horror movies are almost always cheap to make, people never get horror movie fatigue, and nostalgia is a powerful box office force. Or so I’m told.

I’m sure that’s what the studio executives were thinking when they assigned a random intern to go dumpster diving in their subterranean landfill of DVD cases. When that intern stumbled across a battered copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer, they excitedly ran to the executive suite, threw the DVD at the leather chair facing the window, then Uber’d to their college campus to change majors. And that is how reboots get made. Or so I’m told.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is an obvious choice to resurrect...if the target audience is people who were teenagers in the 1990s who still have bad taste in movies. The original I Know What You Did Last Summer was not particularly well-liked by critics (43% positive rating) and pulled in only $125 million. Its sequel plummeted to a 10% critical rating and $84 million box office, effectively killing the franchise. A direct-to-DVD sequel in 2006 and short-lived Amazon Prime series in 2021 served only to prove that people really didn’t like the franchise. Yet, here we are in 2025 with another requel (I will always hate the writers of Scream 5 for coining that term).

Rebooting a 1990s horror franchise isn’t the only lesson I Know What You Did Last Summer took from the Scream reboot. Like Scream 5, I Know What You Did Last Summer is very much a remake of the original but also a sequel (in this case, to the second film - I Still Know What You Did Last Summer), brings back the original survivors, all but puts a nametag on the killer early in the film, and isn’t scary at all.

In case you weren’t a teenager in the 1990s and never saw it, the original film’s plot was that a group of young people accidentally ran over a guy with their car, tried to cover it up, then were systematically murdered a year later by a killer seeking revenge who knew what they had done. This remake has the exact same plot but dumbs down the setup so much that even the Fast and Furious writers are shaking their heads in incredulity.

This time, reunited friends Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) are watching fireworks from the side of a road on a cliff with a blind curve. A car comes speeding around the bend, swerves to avoid hitting Teddy, crashes into the guard rail, and plummets to the ground below. Teddy calls 9-1-1, then convinces the group that they need to leave before the cops and paramedics show up. But why? Even if they were worried they could be blamed, the obvious lie is to just tell the cops the car was speeding around the curve and lost control, simply leaving out the part where Teddy was standing in the road. They even tried to stop the car from falling when it was teetering on the cliff’s edge. Not only is this a scenario where fleeing the scene and keeping it a secret makes no sense, talking to the cops and fibbing would have strengthened the killer’s motivation.

Speaking of the killer, wow was it obvious early on who the killer was. I won’t tell you why or how, but it’s nearly impossible to miss. The only real question is if there is just one killer or multiple killers. Scratch that, two questions. The other question is why does this movie feature exactly no scary scenes whatsoever?

The original I Know What You Did Last Summer was a straight slasher flick. It went for scares. The remake tried to reinvent itself more as a comedy horror, but forgot to tell most of the actors about the comedy part and forgot to add elements that make horror movies frightening. The result was a very non-scary contrast of Wonders, Pidgeon, and Freddie Prinze Jr. taking the movie way too seriously, Hauer-King and Jennifer Love Hewitt phoning it in, and Cline and Withers stealing every scene because they got the memo about the comedy part.

Yes, Hewitt and Prinze Jr. return and in their original roles. Sarah Michelle Geller returns as well, but only in a dream sequence. Which is a shame because she also nailed the comedy part in her one scene.

By the time the credits rolled - including a very predictable mid-credit scene - the only question I had was how much of the movie’s entertainment value was intentional. Many in the audience had fun watching it, but I think it’s because they saw it in a packed audience. Given the bad screenplay, laughably stupid dialogue, lack of frights or thrills, and mostly bad performances, it’s the kind of movie that typical leaves audiences grumbling. I think Cline was so fun to watch that she lifted an otherwise lackluster movie to the kind of movie you watch with a bunch of friends, a bunch of alcohol, and a bunch of running commentary. Which is how the entire franchise should be watched. Still.

Rating: Ask for sixteen dollars back. Or so I’m told.

“Jurassic World: Rebirth” - More like afterbirth.

Does anyone get excited for the birth of their fourth child? Or seventh? Or is it more like that feeling you get when you fit piece number two thousand in that last hole in the jigsaw puzzle? You know what I’m talking about. You were excited when you dumped the pieces out of the box and found all of the edges. You were still pretty into it as you assembled the major features of the picture. But when all was left was the monotonous portions of sky and water, you gritted your teeth and slowly, methodically tried to fit every single remaining piece into every single remaining opening, silently cussing every time a piece didn’t fit. As that last piece settled in, you felt relief at finishing it mixed with the thought “I’m never doing a puzzle again.” Is this still an analogy to having kids? You decide. Bet you’re wondering how many kids I have, aren’t you?

That’s also the entirety of the Jurassic Park/World franchise. Jurassic Park was new and exciting and awesome. Every movie after that has been increasingly disappointing to the point where you really have to question your sanity for continuing to go back for more. Heck, you’ll even lie to yourself that number four (Jurassic World) was better than most. Am I still actually talking about kids? You know you’re thinking it.

Jurassic World: Rebirth is what happens when you’ve run out of ideas. Scratch that, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is what happens when you run out of ideas. Rebirth is what happens when you have a midlife crisis and don’t care that you ran out of birth control.

Despite its title implying a reboot of the franchise, Rebirth is just another sequel in the franchise. To be fair, it does kinda-sorta reboot in that it’s five years later and Earth’s climate has killed the vast majority of the dinosaurs not living around the equator. The military isn’t trying to weaponize them, nobody is trying to sell them on the black market, and there isn’t a prehistoric locust to be found anywhere. There isn’t even a third attempt to build an amusement park or zoo around them. That leaves pharmaceuticals.

That’s right folks. This time around, dinosaurs are going to cure...checking notes...heart disease? That’s it? Nothing lofty like cancer or Alzheimer’s? And, they’re not even really going to cure it, just treat it so people can live ten to twenty years longer? I guess from a how-do-we-make-as-much-money-as-possible angle, treating heart disease would be rather lucrative. Those GLP-1 medications are making boatloads of money.

If you’re confused, the dinosaurs themselves aren’t literally curing heart disease. Though, that would be an interesting scene - a velociraptor wearing a lab coat and stethoscope walking toward a patient with a syringe. Wasn’t that a Dr. Who episode...?

[Googles for five minutes...]

Anyway...pharmaceutical executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) puts together a team to go on a fetch quest to obtain blood samples from three of the largest dinosaurs to ever live. Like all good video games, each dinosaur inhabits a different biome, providing a different setting for each MacGuffin. In this case sea, land, air. Why the largest animals? They lived the longest and had the biggest hearts. Why three different species? Diversity, I guess. And just to make sure you understand how video-game-like this all is, two of the three dinosaurs are the kind that want to eat them. It’s not that the filmmakers couldn’t have made an exciting movie featuring the team hunting for one elusive herbivore or even getting close enough to the land dinosaur (Titanosaurus) after overcoming a bunch of sharp teeth related obstacles. They just chose to go with the most obvious excuse to include harrowing scenes featuring a Mosasaurus (sea) and Quetzalcoatlus (air) - send the team of humans to the carnivores.

The team itself is a by-the-numbers quest team. In addition to the money guy, there’s the wheelman - boat captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), the brains - paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), the muscle/dino chow (Ed Skrein, Bechir Sylvain, Philippine Velge), and the team leader - mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson). All this sounds like a perfectly fine summer action blockbuster, right?

Here's where it gets redundant and pointless - a second group of people gets tangled up in the mission. Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is sailing across the ocean with his two daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa’s stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono). After the Mosasaurus capsizes their boat (and inexplicably doesn’t finish the job and eat them), they are rescued by Zora and crew. When they all get to the island, the two groups are separated, and the film jumps back and forth between the fetch quest crew and stupid family drama. And all because there is a clause in the franchise contract (or so I’m told) that requires children be put in peril. Don’t pretend you aren’t rooting for these annoying vestigial screenplay organs to become a dinosaur’s late-night indigestion.

Here's where it gets worse. In a nod back to Jurassic World, Rebirth features more mutant dinosaurs. One is a cross between a raptor and a pterosaur and the other is a cross between a xenomorph and a rancor. No, I’m not mixing my movies. The Distortus Rex (a name I did not make up) looks like if Return of the Jedi and Alien got drunk and, nine months later, the result was a baby no mother could love.

And that just about sums up the movie as a whole. Okay, so maybe that’s a little harsh. Rebirth isn’t the worst movie in the franchise; Jurassic World: Dominion exists. And Rebirth does have a few really fun action sequences, including our old friend the T-Rex. And, and, Johansson, Ali, Bailey, and Friend give pretty good performances when they easily could have phoned them in and nobody would have noticed or cared. But between the unnecessary Delgado family, the insipid and lazy mutant dinos, the film consisting largely of rehashing stuff from its preceding films, and two Titanosaurs getting to second base with each other as the humans watch in awe, Rebirth inspires the same question as every family with several children - are we done yet?

Rating: Ask for seventeen dollars back and call your doctor if you experience blurred vision, bleeding from the ears, involuntary eye-rolls, memory loss, a severe drop in IQ, or a strong desire to throw Junior Mints at people who unironically clap at the end of this movie.

“F1® The Movie” - Wonderboy.

You’re probably going to see a bunch of reviews describing F1® The Movie as predictable and formulaic. Many will call it predictable, but that’s lazy because sports movies are always predictable. Others will call it formulaic, which is also lazy (all movies are formulaic), but also because they can’t resist bad puns (in case you don’t know, the F in F1 stands for formula). Ironically, F1 is formulaic. I don’t say that because it follows the standard racing movie formula (and it does). I say it because it’s The Natural on wheels.

In F1, young Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was going to be the best there ever was. After showing off a bit, he suffers a near-fatal life-changing injury. For a couple of decades after that, he disappears, occasionally racing in random places, and finally gets another shot at the biggest stage in racing - the F1 circuit with the APX team. Once there, he has to contend with the resident and younger star Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). As the season progresses, Hayes wins over the fans and the racing team, while also having to contend with a meddlesome journalist. In addition, one of the team’s owners wants to force another owner, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) to sell his stake (as long as they don’t win a race, the sale will happen). Near the end and riding high, Hayes suffers another injury that looks like his permanent end but grits his teeth and performs in the final race. Sound familiar? Would you be surprised at all if it were revealed Hayes scratched a lightning bolt on the side of his car and named it Wonderboy?

Before you scream SPOILERS!! at me, I did warn you in the first paragraph. And unless you’ve never seen a sports movie, don’t act surprised. Sports movies are always about underdogs. They always feature someone being redeemed. They always feature some form of rival. And they nearly always end with the underdog winning unless it’s Rocky Balboa’s first title fight or the Mystery, Alaska hockey team playing the New York Rangers. And even in those cases, they still won while losing. People generally don’t like that there was no joy in Mudville. So don’t pretend there’s a chance F1 ends with Hayes and/or Pearce dying in a fiery crash and Ruben forced out and bankrupt.

Besides, there are plenty of good things about this movie that provide reason to watch. Obviously, one is Brad Pitt. He’s very easy on the eyes, confirmed by Pearce’s mother (Sarah Niles) when she first lays eyes on a large poster of Hayes and mildly grosses out her son with her comments. But Pitt can also be relied on to always deliver a good, if not great, performance. Some might complain that Pitt always just plays himself, to which I reply - yeah, exactly. Isn’t that like complaining about pizza always being pizza?

You know who else is really easy on the eyes and gives a great performance? Damson Idris. Pearce is cocky, arrogant, entitled, and wildly talented. He’s essentially younger Hayes, which is another staple of sports movies like this, including...wait for it...The Natural. Idris delivers a performance that nails all of those character traits, then nails Pearce’s character growth through Pearce’s very strong story arc. It’s so well done you’ll go from wanting someone on the pit crew to hit him with a wrench to kinda, sorta rooting for him to win the last race. Don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler. Hayes and Pearce both participate in the races and only one of them has to win to save Ruben’s ownership. You’ll be rooting for both of them in the end, I promise.

You know who else is really easy on the eyes and gives a great performance? Kerry Condon. She plays Kate McKenna, a former aerospace engineer and the team’s technical director. McKenna is the brains behind the team and the design of the car. She’s also the love interest, but the screenplay doesn’t turn her into the wide-eyed damsel pining for Hayes. Perhaps the best scene of the film features McKenna expertly handling her two head-butting drivers in a friendly game of poker to determine which driver gets to be the primary driver in an upcoming race. It’s the kind of scene and performance that confirms why she was nominated for an Academy Award (The Banshees of Inisherin).

You know who else is really easy on the eyes and gives a great performance? Just kidding, I’ll stop now. And, yes, Javier Bardem gives a great performance; not sure about the other part. Sorry Javy, you’re no Brad Pitt.

Actually, you know what else is easy on the eyes and performs great? All of the racing stuff and not just the racing scenes themselves (which are really cool). While the story is completely fictional, the filmmakers went to great lengths to showcase much of what goes into an F1 racing team. The technology alone is staggering for what seems like such a simple sport - to drive a car really fast. From wind tunnels, to racing simulators, to an operations room and team that looks like it’s going to launch rockets to the moon, to the various components of the cars, it’s mind-boggling to realize it’s all done to gain a few seconds of time. And for the low, low cost of a $50-$150 million dollars per year.

F1 does all the right things. Not only does it check all the boxes of a good summer blockbuster - good action, beautiful people, excellent visual effects. It checks all the boxes of movies that you’ll watch multiple times - good storytelling, well-developed characters, smart dialogue, and excellent performances. I knew next to nothing about F1 before this film and now I’m far more interested in the entirety of it.

Rating: Ask for the low, low cost of zero dollars back.