last summer

“It’s 1997 all over again. Isn’t that nostalgic?” Freddie Prinze Jr. says to fellow millennial heartthrob Jennifer Love Hewitt in this fittingly silly resurrection of the B-movie slasher franchise “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” In the ’90s original, based on the young adult novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, Prinze and Hewitt played Ray and Julie, the sole survivors of a teen clique that accidentally runs over a stranger, conceals the crime and then, one year later, needs to flee a hook-wielding avenger over the Fourth of July weekend. Having endured that escapade and a sequel that chased them to the Bahamas, the duo is back for this mildly meta installment to mentor a new generation of manslaughterers. A mysterious raincoat-clad killer has a point when a message in blood is smeared: You can’t evade the past.

The five youngsters fleeing the inevitable are sensible Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) and her bland ex-boyfriend Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), daffy blond Danica (Madelyn Cline) and her rich fiancé Teddy (Tyriq Withers) and hard luck Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), who just got out of rehab. Slightly older than their forebearers were during their misadventure, they’re all in their early 20s and launching their adult lives when they repeat the same deadly mistake on the same night, on the same stretch of coastal road in Southport, North Carolina. Danica groans, “It’s called Reaper’s Curve for a reason.”

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s perky update has a few things going for it, including low expectations. Co-written with former journalist Sam Lansky, this horror throwback just wants to get some giggles at the mall, even cracking a joke about Nicole Kidman’s beloved AMC ad. Robinson, who created MTV’s “Sweet/Vicious” and has helped shepherd a handful of other fluffy amusements, is a promising popcorn wit, deftly ensuring the tone is neither too sober nor too snide. You don’t feel that guilty gobbling her empty calories.

Robinson seems to respect the first film as though she was adapting Proust. Perhaps to people of a certain age who grew up watching it on VHS at slumber parties, it is their madeleine. The script works in as many callbacks as possible: spooky mannequins under plastic sheeting, tacky parade floats with giant fiberglass clams, Hewitt hollering her memorable line: “What are you waiting for?” (And there’s a big cameo that deserves to be a surprise.) The gags feel klutzier when they aim for 21st century humor — say, Hewitt sipping tea from a mug that reads “tears of the patriarchy.”

This latest cast was all born around the time of the ’90s massacre and are oblivious to the murder spree yet to come. Callow Teddy even makes fun of the name on one of the dead kids’ graves: “Barry Cox,” he snorts. Powerful land developers like Teddy’s dad (Billy Campbell) also buried information about the previous attacks. The forces of real estate and the local police department have invested heavily in transforming this blue-collar fishing hamlet into a tony beach resort. Even before bodies get strung up on the pier like sharks, you’re thinking that the writers must have also dug out their VHS tapes of “Jaws.”

Pragmatic, good-hearted Ava is the film’s moral center, the one disgusted enough to realize that she, her friends and Southport’s leadership are all cretins. Chase Sui Wonders has been strong in everything I’ve seen her in — I’m watching her career with curiosity — even if here, she mostly expresses her foul mood by changing her wardrobe from slime green to black. Ava’s ex Milo seems like a role that should amount to more than it does. All there is to know about him is that he’s alleged to work in politics and he and Ava have zero heat.

But we come to love Ava’s BFF Danica, who prances into obvious death traps wearing flimsy silver mules. She’s a walking cupcake — in this genre, a disposable-seeming treat — yet the way Madelyn Cline plays her is fabulous. This bohemian is as shallow as they come, fretting that the stress is giving her alopecia and suggesting her professional empath for guidance. (Danica also has a life coach, an energy healer and a psychic.) With her soft cheeks and tearful, raspy baby voice, it’s shocking how much we get attached to her. Gratefully, Robinson clearly loves her characters too and makes their screen time count rather than treating them like grindhouse fodder, that kind of violent vaudeville where you can’t wait for the hook to drag someone off screaming.

The film’s strongest move is that it encourages us to like (and laugh at) our victims. Nearly all of them — Milo excepted — are interesting, especially a true crime podcaster named Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel, a scenery-chewing delight) who calls Southport’s cover-up a case of “gentrifi-slay-tion.” When this ghoulish fangirl escorts Ava to a historic murder scene and starts to unbutton her top, you’re convinced that she finds all this bloodshed a turn-on. Another target, played by a fratty Joshua Orpin, tries to bribe the killer with crypto.

Let’s be frank: None of these characters, past or present, would have grown up to be rocket scientists. The original got through its gore scenes with grim brutishness, like it was embarrassed that they had to be done. Written by Kevin Williamson, the talent behind the clever slasher “Scream” and the earnest romance “Dawson’s Creek,” it couldn’t quite capture the best elements of both. Robinson has more fun playing executioner. Each death is given a satisfying buildup; she’s a skilled hook-tease. One muscular kid who’s been pumping up to defend himself lets out an excited war whoop when it’s finally time to fight for his life.

The score, camerawork and editing are simply fine. They’re not trying to pull focus from the dialogue, which is genuinely funny. (My favorite design choice was the clodding sound of the killer’s boots when they come tromping in for the coup de grâce.) But the plotting barely keeps pace. Characters wander away for bizarre stretches of time. Just when I thought things were losing steam, someone got menaced in an actual steam room.

Robinson is more interested in pranking us with psych-outs than sinister scares. She’s under palpable pressure to execute a twist, so several scenes feel like a magician flipping over the wrong card to distract you from the right one tucked in their sleeve. You don’t quite buy the big reveal. Yet quibbling would seem as tweedy as arguing that the film is peddling both nostalgia and anemoia — a longing for an era one never knew firsthand. This recycled trash is no treasure, but I’m betting the majority of this redo’s audience will be young enough to find ’90s-style schlock adorably quaint.

Bronny James stood with his back to the wall with both hands buried in his workout shorts, his practice with the Lakers summer league team complete, his voice sounding more confident now that he’s entering his second season in the NBA.

He had to endure the outsized pressure and criticism of playing last season with his superstar father, LeBron James, a season in which Bronny and his dad made history by becoming the first father-son duo to play together in an NBA game.

Now, Bronny is more assured about his talents and he’ll get to showcase what he’s worked on when the Lakers play the Golden State Warriors in the California Classic on Saturday in San Francisco.

The Lakers will play three games there and then head to Las Vegas for the NBA Summer League.

That is where the most anticipated summer game could take place because the Lakers open the action against Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 overall pick in the June draft, and the Dallas Mavericks on July 10.

Like all last season, James knows a lot of people will pay attention to that game — to him, still, and to Flagg.

“Last year it was a crazy environment for me to step in and produce right off the rip, like being nervous too,” Bronny said. “So, I feel like this year, I’ll be able to go out and play freely and know what I’m gonna go out and do for me and my teammates. So, yeah, I’m just really excited to be able to play nervous-free.”

Dalton Knecht got some extra shots up after practice Wednesday, his stroke looking just as impressive as it did last season when he shot 37.6% from three-point range during his rookie season with the Lakers.

Knecht, too, is especially looking forward to playing in Las Vegas.

“Vegas, I mean, I feel like all of us didn’t care who we played [last summer],” Knecht said. “It was just go out there and play. Our fans always show up. We go out there all the time and it’s pretty much Laker fans that sell out that arena and show us so much love. We’re just trying to go out there and try to put on a show no matter who we are playing.”

Lakers rookie Adou Thiero, their second-round pick (36th overall) out of Arkansas whom they acquired in a trade with the Timberwolves, is dealing with a left knee injury and will not play this summer. The Lakers said Thiero is in the final stages of his return to play and expected to be fully cleared for training camp.

For James, one year of playing in the NBA has made a difference as he approaches this summer.

He appeared in 27 games last season, starting once, and averaged 2.3 points per game on 31.3% shooting, 28.1% from three-point range.

“Yeah, it’s definitely some more excitement than nervousness, for sure,” James said. “I’m just ready to go out there and play and be better than I was the last time I was playing. Just having that mindset of being ready to play and ready for whatever’s thrown at me, no matter the role, what I gotta do on defense, offense, everything. Being a good teammate for my new summer league team, stuff like that.”

Besides skill work, James said his plan for the summer is to be in “elite condition” and to “be disruptive on the defensive end.”

“So that’s my main focus, probably why I’m getting a little leaner,” he said. “But I still got 215 [pounds] on me still. So, I’m just running a lot, getting a lot of conditioning in. And then just staying on top of my diet, eating healthy, being a professional. It’s just Year 2, so I gotta lock in on the things that I didn’t know before my rookie year and being better and excel with that. Yeah, my main focus is this year, or this summer, has been being in elite condition. That’s what I’ve been talking to my coaches about.”

Knecht played in 78 games last season, averaging 9.1 points over 19.2 minutes per game.

As the season progressed, Knecht said the game slowed down for him and that allowed him to improve.

When the Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Timberwolves, Knecht said he went to work right away. In his eyes, there was no time to waste.

“Right after the [playoff] loss, I pretty much started right away. Didn’t take much time off,” he said. “So I was getting in the gym, starting at 6 a.m., going with the guys at 10 and then coming back later at night just to get as many shots as I can, just working on my game and my cuts.”

Universal Pictures’ “How To Train Your Dragon” soared over the competition this weekend, as family-friendly films continued their dominance at the box office.

The live-action adaptation of the animated franchise from DreamWorks Animation grossed $83.7 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates.

It beat out fellow live-action remake “Lilo & Stitch” from Walt Disney Co., which hauled in $15 million over the weekend for a cumulative total of $366 million so far after 24 days. A24’s “Materialists,” Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” and Lionsgate’s “Ballerina” rounded out the top five.

Expectations were high for the Universal film, which revives a profitable franchise for the studio.

The original animated movie was released in 2010 and grossed nearly $495 million in global box office revenue. A sequel soon followed in 2014 and brought in more than $621 million worldwide. The most recent film in the trilogy, “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” came out in 2019 and made almost $540 million globally.

“How to Train Your Dragon” comes at an opportune time for family films. After a lackluster first quarter at the box office, theater attendance has been turbocharged, at least in part by the success of kid-friendly movies such as Warner Bros. Pictures “A Minecraft Movie” and Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch.”

Though family audiences were initially slow to return after the pandemic, movies that appeal to those theatergoers have turned out to be box office juggernauts.

Last summer, Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” and Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s “Despicable Me 4” drove theater revenues at a time when the industry was collectively wringing its hands after a slow Memorial Day weekend.

This summer, “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch” are demonstrating the power of the hybrid film, which combines live actors with computer-animated creatures — a strategy that has proved valuable, said David A. Gross, who writes movie industry newsletter FranchiseRe.

The trend began back in 1988 with Robert Zemeckis’ “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” but has seen recent success with films like Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchise and StudioCanal’s “Paddington” movies.

“It’s just a logical step in computer filmmaking,” Gross said. “It’s a very powerful storytelling tool.”

Jennifer Lopez kicked off the American Music Awards with gusto Monday night, opening with a six-minute dance routine set to 23 hits from the last year, then changing outfits eight times as she hosted the evening. She also changed her touring plans, announcing a Las Vegas residency in place of the world tour she canceled last summer.

“SURPRISE JLOVERS! We’re back! I’m doing a residency in Las Vegas!,” she wrote Monday night on social media.

Lopez will play a dozen dates at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, starting Dec. 30 and spread out through March 28, in her “Up All Night” residency. Tickets go on sale June 6.

The “On the Floor” singer backed out of the summer 2024 tour almost exactly a year ago, saying — amid rumors that she and then-husband Ben Affleck were living apart — she needed “time off to be with her children, family and close friends.” Months later, as the public-facing parts of their relationship seemed to signal it was over, she filed for divorce from the “Argo” Oscar winner.

But Monday night in Vegas — the AMAs went down at the Fontainebleu on the Strip — Lopez turned the spotlight on others, including Janet Jackson, who performed publicly for the first time in seven years and accepted the Icon Award, given to a performer whose body of work has had a major influence on pop music worldwide.

Previous recipients include Lionel Richie in 2022 and Rihanna in 2013.

Rod Stewart took home the 2025 award for lifetime achievement, while Gracie Abrams was named new artist of the year. Billie Eilish grabbed seven awards in categories including song of the year, album of the year, female pop star and favorite touring artist.

Country music awards went to Post Malone, Dan & Shay, and Beyoncé. Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” took favorite hip-hop song, while Eminem’s “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)” was named favorite hip-hop album. Doechii’s “Anxiety” was the top social song, Megan Thee Stallion was fave female hip-hop artist, and SZA and the Weeknd won in the female and male R&B singer categories.

A complete list of winners is available on the AMAs website.