We Smurfed What You Smurfed Last Smurf (CREDIT: Paramount Animation; Brook Rushton/Columbia Pictures)

Smurfs

Starring: Rihanna, James Corden, John Goodman, Nick Offerman, JP Karliak, Dan Levy, Amy Sedaris, Natasha Lyonne, Sandra Oh, Jimmy Kimmel, Octavia Spencer, Nick Kroll, Hannah Waddingham, Alex Winter, Maya Erskine, Kurt Russell, Xolo Maridueña, Hugo Miller, Chris Miller, Billie Lourd, Marshmello, Spencer X, Chrisy Prynoski

Director: Chris Miller

Running Time: 92 Minutes

Rating: PG for Smurf Action and Some Rude Smurfin’

Release Date: July 18, 2025 (Theaters)

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Starring: Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Billy Campbell, Gabriette Bechtel

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: R for Twisting, Poking, and Hanging, Plus a Few Seductions and a Couple of Joints

Release Date: July 18, 2025 (Theaters)

A couple of decades-old franchises are getting revived at the multiplex this weekend. That sentence could apply to just about any weekend from the past 25 years or so. But in case you’re reading this review from the future (or the past), the weekend I’m specifically referring to right now is the one that begins on July 18, 2025. And the movies I’m talking about are Smurfs (no “the”) and the same-titled lega-sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer. Is there any way both of these movies could possibly appeal to the same person?! Let’s use myself as a test case.

I’m pretty much the exact wrong age to have any affection for the Smurfs. Having grown up in the 90s, I’m too young for the 80s cartoon, too old to have fallen in love with these blue dudes from their 2010s movies, and too childless to have anyone to drag me into Smurf Village against my village. So why am I suddenly saying “Smurf, yeah!” in 2025? One part professional duty, one part loyalty to my favorite pop star of all time, who just so happens to be voicing Smurfette. Ostensibly, the plot of this movie is about retrieving a magic book to rescue Papa Smurf (John Goodman) and keep it out of the hands of the Alliance of Evil Wizards. Also, an identity-less Smurf named No Name Smurf (James Corden) tries to find his “thing.” But in practice, it’s a phantasmagorical, feature-length hallucination/advertisement for Rihanna’s music. That makes for a disorienting, sometimes distressing experience that also pleasingly tickled the most demented part of my cerebellum.

Finishing off the second half of this double feature with a full slasher smoothie, an I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot is more expressly right up my alley, at least theoretically. The 1997 original is more iconic than it is good, which leaves plenty of room to re-calibrate the formula when going a little meta with a decades-later sequel. This time around, it starts off with a very similar incident: following the engagement party of Danica (Madelyn Cline) and Teddy (Tyriq Withers), they join their friends Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) to watch 4th of July fireworks along a winding mountain road. A little bit of horseplay results in a passing car falling off a cliff, presumably killing the driver. They then agree to cover up what they witnessed with the help of Teddy’s real estate developer dad (Billy Campbell). But a year later, they start receiving threatening notes and being stalked by a hook-wielding killer wearing a black slicker. The police aren’t much help, but a couple of survivors from the 1997 massacre (Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. returning as Julie and Ray) are there to potentially help.

The new IKWYDLS initially sidesteps the Why of slasher history repeating itself, instead focusing on the reactions of the core victims, which range from understandably freaked out to bizarrely nonchalant (sometimes within the same character). These are mostly fun people to hang out with, at least for me, because even though I’m about a decade older than them, I’m similarly terminally online and pop culture-saturated. So when they casually reference Bloody Disgusting and Nicole Kidman’s AMC Theatres intro in the midst of the mayhem, it just makes perfect sense. As for the killer reveal, without spoiling too much, it risks being sacrilegious but also examines our responses to trauma in a way that I found equally distressing and compelling. This isn’t a simple revenge story. Which is to say, it is about revenge, but it surprisingly digs into how vengeance is unsatisfying and can be complicated by messier motivations. I don’t know if I needed the contrast of the Smurfs appetizer for this realization to hit as hard as it did, but that’s just how it worked out.

Grades:
Smurfs (2025): 2 out of 5 Smurfs
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025): 3.5 out of 5 Hooks