"It: Chapter 2" Movie Review

By: James Southworth
Rating: 3/5 Stars

There's not very many times that one could equate a horror film to an "event movie", but with Stephen King adaptations, that always seems to be the case. Love him or hate him, King is still the most popular horror author around. He has a very specific formula, but it's one that clearly works for him. In 2019, there are going to be a total of three different King adaptations. This doesn't surprise me, as the movie "It" from 2017 garnered massive popularity. Critical and audience acclaim made it the highest grossing horror movie of all time (yes, it's even above "The Exorcist" and "Get Out"). I can see why it got so much attention, as there are elements of classic horror in it. Personally, I did enjoy the movie, although maybe not so much as other people. I still hold the opinion, though, that the cold open of the film where Georgie and Pennywise interact is one of the best horror scenes I've ever watched. I really wish the rest of the film lived up to that, but we do still get a pretty solid horror flick with some good scares. Now, "It: Chapter 2" is out. All of our protagonists are adults and out of Derry, Maine with the exception of Mike. He soon discovers that the clown they thought they killed is back. Due to a vow they made as children, Mike calls all of The Losers Gang back together to take down Pennywise, once and for all. How does this movie compare to the first? Let's talk about it.

There are definitely some commendable positives to the film. I think the most obviously identifiable one is the performances by the cast. I think most of the actors here did a good job of following the personality traits of their child counterparts, while also adding some interesting updates. Easily the best performance in this film (as far as the grown up versions of characters from the previous films go) is Bill Hader as Richie. I really think he matched what Finn Wolfhard brought to the table to almost sheer perfection. He was incredibly funny in the film, having great delivery, and he always worked well off his fellow cast members. Hader also brought some complexity to Richie that I felt like we hadn't seen previously, making the character more compelling than I expected him to be. James McAvoy is great (as usual) as Bill. I appreciate that he made his performance subdued and nuanced. He did a great job at letting the emotions of his character come out naturally, and was always interesting to watch whenever he was on screen. Isaiah Mustafa and Jay Ryan are both pretty solid in the roles of Mike and Ben, even though their roles weren't particularly substantial here. There were only two weaker performances here. I think that James Ransone played Eddie a bit too over the top in the film for the most part. There were times he did well, but there were more times when I felt like he was hamming it up a bit. Jessica Chastain is underwhelming as Beverly. This really disappointed me, as Beverly was my favorite of the children characters in the original "It". I really don't think this was entirely Chastain's fault though, as her character is given practically nothing to do here. Whereas her character in the first film was quite important to everything going on, here she seems to be relegated to the background alot, despite her being billed as the main character.

Let's now go ahead and talk about one of the aspects I'm most conflicted on in this film: the scares. As one would expect, a majority of the scares do come from our favorite scary clown. Bill Skarsgard is once again magnificent as Pennywise, and is easily the biggest highlight of this movie. You can tell that he's having a ball playing this character, and does great at portraying him. I do wish the movie had given him more quiet moments to show what he's capable of. One of the best scares of the movie feels like a sort of follow-up to the cold open of the original movie. The scare works so much because there's a quiet sense of tension and build up to it. Pennywise is just talking to a child, and I felt cold chills going up my spine. He was normal-sized, and everything about it felt subtle and like it was building up to something. And when that pay-off comes, it's worth it. Some other effective scares come when all of The Losers Club are searching for their respective "artifacts" (memories from their childhood that are connected to Pennywise). For each person, Pennywise scares them by tapping into their deepest fears. While these scares aren't quite as effective as the ones done in Chapter One, there are some that still work. The scenes with Richie and Ben were particularly effective to me. There is an opposite side to the coin for the scares though. For every scare here that is good, it can be negated by one that is over the top to the point of sheer ridiculousness. If you thought that the first "It" relied on CGI too much, this one takes it to a whole new level. There are so many CGI monsters in this film; sometimes even Pennywise is CGI. These "scares" do not work, because they are not scary. In fact, especially in the second half of the film, you can easily predict what will happen: there will be a feeling of great tension with cool set pieces, and then all that tension will be broken by a monster who is supposed to be scary, but ultimately makes you burst out laughing. I think some of the monsters were meant to be funny (like the one that attacks Eddie is clearly meant to be ridiculous, and it is legitimately funny in a good way), but I think others were meant to be taken seriously. I just couldn't, because they looked so dumb. Monsters making loud noises just doesn't make good horror in my opinion.

The plot of this movie is also something I'm conflicted on. There are some really good parts to how the movie builds up. I think the movie does a pretty good job at establishing what all the adults of the Losers Club are doing. In fact, for most of them what they're doing makes sense, particularly Richie being a stand-up comedian and Eddie being a high-maintenance business man. I think the film may have stalled a little bit too much in the beginning, especially as it repeatedly showed Mike calling every person, telling them they needed to come back to Maine. I don't know if we really needed to see such extended cuts of their reactions; the only one that I could see as being important was Stanley's reaction. However, I do find the first act, plot wise, to be the strongest of any of the acts here. When The Losers Club all meet up for the first time in 27 years in a restaurant, you can really feel the chemistry between them. That's probably the best scene of the movie, as all the characters are reminiscing about old times, and you can feel a real sense of comraderie between them. I did at least care about these characters, which helped me be invested in the movie despite its weaknesses. Where the plot really starts going off the rails is in the next two acts. Though I do like some of the scares when all the gang are finding their artifacts, I still believe that part of the movie goes on for far too long. The movie meanders significantly for most of the second act, even if it is technically the most interesting part to me. If it was shortened down a bit, I could've seen this part working a little better. Also, the flashbacks in this film are one too many. I would've preferred it if they'd decreased the amount of those segments, as they really disrupt the film's flow. In retrospect, they don't add a whole lot to the movie at all. The climax of the film is where the pacing issues really show. I don't recall the last time I've seen a climax of a film last this long. It truly is too overwhelming to watch, with everything being either too big or too loud. It really seemed like director Andrew Muschietti didn't want viewers to lose attention, but I found myself doing just that because of how long it was taking for the pinnacle moment to wrap up. The movie does end decently enough. It wasn't a resolution that left me stunned, but it was satisfying to me.

As you can probably tell after reading my review, my feelings about "It: Chapter Two" are pretty split. I'd say that I appreciate what the first film gave us far more after seeing this one. The first one may not be perfect, but it did at least feel concise and kept me engaged more consistently than this one did. I wouldn't say this film was a huge disappointment for me, as it wasn't one of my top anticipated films of the year. Still, I could see others who really enjoyed the first film being very underwhelmed by this one. For me, this is an okay film with not too many offensive elements, but I can't see myself coming back to it any time soon.