- Directed by Andy Muschietti
- September 6, 2019
27 years have passed, and The Losers Club is drawn back to their hometown of Derry, Maine and must end Pennywise the Dancing Clown once and for all.
I must say I have not read the book so I am coming at this from the perspective of someone not personally invested in the original story. I have heard though that there is added material in this film and that the ending does not quite match with what was written. It definitely feels like that here. There does feel like there is padding in this film and the ending feels tacked on possibly to not mimic the ending of the miniseries or even the book-both of which have their own seriously devoted groups.
From what I have heard the narrative of the novel upon which this is based jumps from past to present and there is a lot more of the past in that book than there is of the present. In this sequel the scenes of the past have no bearing on the events of the film-at least nothing more than to remind you of the first film. They do nothing to grow the story of this sequel. They are there as if the director felt like he needed to remind you of the first film. The movie could have done without them. They added to the runtime and nothing more.
I enjoyed the first film. It was genuinely frightening at points and extremely disturbing. Books do not always translate well to film and horror books seem to be especially so. It the Movie was just a great film. This sequel though is only just okay. It did not have the creep factor of the first one. Not a bad movie but not as good as its predecessor. It Chapter Two felt more like a film with horror elements that took itself seriously rather than a horror film. There are plenty of weird things to look at, but nothing was truly scary. Pennywise just made you uncomfortable here.
The instance in Mrs. Kersh’s (Joan Gregson) apartment is weird and shocking up to the point when we see the boob demon thing or whatever you wanna call it. In fact, that creature makes a few more appearances in the film. It just looked a little silly and reminded me of an anorexic version of that old hag witch from Labyrinth. Once was enough but the successive use made the thing a joke by driving home how ridiculous it looked. Two fried eggs swinging like pendulums do not make you scream in terror.
The focus of the film are the Losers as adults. We get a few flashbacks of them as kids but now the story is firmly about them as adults. There does not seem to be any establishment of relationships among the group as adults. I understand that their memories were wiped in a way once they left the town, but it is not like they do too much to reestablish anything. They just have to work together. They remark on the past as they remember but the past does not seem to inform the present.
This film has more jokes than the first one did. Here there are several jokes, and it makes it feel like one of the better horror films from the 80s. A whole part of 80s horror films was dark humor but being stylized like one of the better 80s horror films does not make it a good horror film for now. This is supposed to be a serious effort and the jokes take away from that.
The defeat of Pennywise feels a little anti-climactic. They fight Pennywise with insults (Seriously!) and that quickly starts working on him even though Pennywise was aware of their goal by insulting him. To come up with this they reference something they heard in school about an animal and its size and they come up with a rather interesting plan if not simple to bring the shape shifting Pennywise to a more manageable size in order to kill him. But when Pennywise blocks the tunnel rather than make him physically small they start insulting him to make him emotionally small. I am not sure how that has the same effect as forcing him to shrink to get in a tunnel. Mean words are not as serious as physical danger, and I am guessing screenwriter Gary Dauberman cannot tell the difference between the two.
The adult versions of the loser club are all well cast. Jessica Chastain as Beverly “Bev” Marsh, James McAvoy as William “Bill” Denbrough, and Bill Hader as Richard “Richie” Tozier are among the talented actors that take over for the young actors from the last film. It was nice to see Isaiah Mustafa show up as the adult version of Michael “Mike” Hanlon. He first hit it big as the Old Spice Guy in some of the best and at times mind-bending commercials ever. I have seen him in interviews and a few other minor roles since and hoped for more from him. I think he has talent, and it was nice to see him in something major.
The actors are good but that does not do much to aid the film. The effects are great. The head alone that gets the spider legs (which feels like it is a bit of a homage to my favorite effect in the 1982 The Thing) just looks fantastic. Visually the movie looks good. It is photographed quite well. There are plenty of elements for a very good film but that does not make this a very good film.
The main reason to see It Chapter Two is to watch the conclusion of the film version of the story. However the first film was a self-contained (and better) movie and provided more than enough closure. This gets an “if you want.”
Warren Watched A Movie 