IT . . . was just okay

Rating: 6/10 (9 September 2017)

I haven't read the book.
I actually paid $22 to see this on IMAX (well, what they're calling IMAX at the Regal anyway), that's how up for it I was. I very, very rarely pay to see a film in a theater with so many online options available, but hey, Richard Roeper said it was not only one of the best horror films ever made but one of the best films of ANY genre ever made. I should have known better. I lost respect for Roeper when he gave Jupiter Ascending an F. Anyway, no, it's not one of the best films ever made, not even one of the best horror films ever made, and I'll tell you why.
Mind you, I haven't read the book.
So what we have is Goonies or Stand By Me or more recently Stranger Things (you know, a group of boys, sometimes with one girl thrown in, having an adventure together), except this time around these kids aren't naive or innocent so to speak. They all have dealt or are currently dealing with some horrific trauma. It's a nice plot twist that IT feeds on their real life fears, but since their real life existence is actually in a way just as or more terrifying than a ghost clown is, it kind of makes the ghost clown less terrifying. All the adults in this film are just sons of bitches, so compared to this ghost clown, who isn't real so to speak and who isn't going to be around permanently, the adults in this film are more horrifying than the monster is. And the bullies, who are but a mere pack of caricatures, are so conscienceless and ruthless that they defy plausibility and once again come off as more menacing than even Pennywise.
Like I said I saw this in IMAX. I didn't really want to see it in IMAX but that just happened to be what was playing at the time of day I was available. And let me tell you it was LOUD. Way too loud. Too loud for a horror film. A scary horror film has to have some subtly. This thing was just a constant barrage of obnoxious music you'd expect from Indiana Jones not a film about a killer clown, people screaming, Pennywise screeching, the bullies yelling. Never in this film are you given a chance to relax, which makes the jumps scares, and that's pretty much all the scares there are here, much less effective.
In my opinion the kids couldn't act that well. Often times they seemed to be reciting lines. All the cute one liners that were suppose to be funny fell flat. It was very formulaic. I didn't understand why the female lead was being bullied. She's borderline gorgeous and smart and witty but for some reason the homely dumb girls pick on her. It just didn't work for me. And there were a lot of other things that were completely implausible. Early in the film the short chubby kid gets a really major wound (trying not to spoil things) on his gut, but in the next scene he's swimming in a quarry. Lol. What?
As for Pennywise, was Bill Skarsgard even there? Most of the clown scenes were CGI, and the ones that weren't, I mean he's so heavily made up in costume and white face did it really matter who was behind there? And without fail, just when he was getting creepy, suddenly there'd be a big bang of music and the CGI clown would scream and come rushing at lighting speed at whoever was the victim at the time. This happened so many times it stopped being scary because we expected it. And we never get to know why Pennywise is even haunting these kids. We knew why Freddy Krugar haunted kids. Their parents burned him to death for being a child molester. But what's Pennywise's motivation. Some vague things are mentioned about the history of the town but it's never revealed why this ghost clown has come back to haunt the kids of Derry. Didn't make sense.
And the movie is way too long. Way too long. It's a movie about a killer clown, for crying out loud, not Schindler's List. I was yawning by the end and could barely sit through yet another scene where the kids are all bonding together.
These are my thoughts. I could go on or edit this thing to make a much finer review but there's already over 200 reviews here for this film so this will be all the time I'll invest in it.
I give it six stars.