Trying to hard

Rating: 4/10 (2 January 2018)

AS a fan of the original It, this one was expected to be a new take on the story and not a carbon copy of the the original. I was OK with that and was excited to see what direction they took.
SO I guess I have to start with what I liked about the original. Like the first Jaws, Pennywise was rarely seen and when he was he more playfully sadistic then outright gore. Taunting, torturing, and otherwise being a general nuisance to the kids. The opportunist that he was would allow him to pick one off when the option was there. The horror was subtle.
This version is not subtle at all, matter fact is overboard with gore and for no good reason. It doesn't make Pennywise more evil or less. They tried to hard . He is constantly trying to lure them to him to get them where the old version he was more methodical. Imagine that the old Pennywise is more refined and practiced, while this one is a rookie.That is what it felt like to me.
Now for the other characters. Namely The losers club. You felt like Bill form the first one was actually a stuttering kid. You felt like the kids were who they played. This one felt like a bunch of snot nosed foul mouthed kids running around trying to play their characters. The amount of f bombs dropped and at times for no good reason other then a line was not enjoyable to watch. It lessoned the experience into any other run of the mill horror movie where the characters are shallow and morally bankrupt. At times i was hoping Pennywise would get one just to shut him up. Between Richie and Eddie I kept shaking my head. Not once did the characters in the first one make me annoyed. This one, annoyed within minutes.
Bill Skaarsgard did a good job with the character in look , and this still can be a good outcome in Chapter 2 if they drop the trying to hard feel and just let movie be what it is from the start. Sadly with little character development from the first chapter we wont get much more in the second half.