I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

As mindlessly engaging as its predecessor, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer picks up a year later and follows Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) as she embarks on a weekend getaway to the Bahamas with three friends (Brandy Norwood’s Karla, Mekhi Phifer’s Tyrell, and Matthew Settle’s Will) – with trouble ensuing as the first film’s maniacal fisherman arrives on the scene and immediately starts carving up everyone in sight (eg even the maid is brutally dispatched). The unapologetically thin nature of the movie’s premise is ultimately not quite as problematic as one might’ve anticipated, as director Danny Cannon – working from Trey Callaway’s screenplay – generally keeps things moving at a brisk clip and punctuates the proceedings with a number of appreciatively brutal instances of gore (which is undoubtedly an improvement over the original film’s relatively chaste sensibilities). There’s also little doubt that the quirky supporting cast goes a long way towards keeping things interesting, with folks like Jeffrey Combs, Jennifer Esposito, and Jack Black offering up expectedly compelling (yet all-too-brief) performances from the periphery of the proceedings. The movie’s stagnant midsection ensures that one’s interest slowly but surely starts to dwindle, however, and it does become awfully difficult to work up any sympathy for the characters’ increasingly perilous predicament. It’s a vibe that effectively cements I Still Know What You Did Last Summer‘s place as an entertainingly disposable endeavor, although, to be fair, one’s appreciation for the film is probably directly related to one’s appreciation of the original (ie if you liked that one…)

** out of ****