Average adaption - too many horror set-pieces and ear-bleedingly loud

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2017)

IT could have been a horror classic. Instead we have an okay film which doesn't quite grip as it should, and two hours after seeing it is already starting to fade from my memory.
Part of the problem is that Pennywise is a bit overused. Bill Skarsgard does a good job, but he pops up roughly every five minutes or so, and his effectiveness is diminished as the film goes on - until the climax, when the creepiness factor goes into overdrive.
The child actors are all okay, but some of "The Losers Club" are underdeveloped. Mike Hanlon's interest in the history of Derry is transferred to Ben Hanscom, which left very little to go on. Mike is thinly sketched and so is Richie. It fumbles Eddie's story very badly.
It was probably just the cinema I saw it in, but the volume was way too loud - it was ear-splitting. And as the film, as so many modern horror films do, over relies on jump cuts, it felt like a jack hammer each time it happened. Jumpcuts don't improve a horror film, they are a cheap go to for lazy film makers, and there were too many of them in this movie. Too many horror set pieces in general, and more character stuff needed for me.
There are some good moments,though. Stan's creepy painting - a sequence not in the novel - really works, though again it means reducing characterisation, as we get to know Stan through his bird watching in Stephen King's novel. He's also a boy scout, another aspect totally gone. Ben's library encounter with Pennywise is also effectively spooky....a trail of little Easter eggs leading straight to Pennywise. Beverly Marsh was really well done, until she apparently killed her dad - WTF? - and Henry Bowers is much more effective than he was in the t.v. adaption.
I'm also pleased that some of the background to Derry made it into the film, though did it really need to be updated to the 80s? Part of the book's charm is that it is set in the late 50s. I can't get nostalgic over the era of Ronald Reagan and awful music. I missed a lot of the "growing up" stuff from the book. This was a movie that badly needed more character development.
All told, though, I enjoyed it to a degree, and I will be back for part two. Maybe more enjoyable if you haven't read the book or seen the much loved t.v. mini-series.