Generic horror movie with horrible sounds and poor team dynamic

Rating: 3/10 (17 October 2017)

I went in pretty excited, the original TV miniseries was great.
It 2017 was scary. I jumped off my seat a couple of times (damn you old painting lady). However, film suffers from 2010s horror movie tropes where everything has to be loud and thrown to the screen as quickly as possible. It gets annoying pretty quick in this movie.
Practically every single scary scene in the movie starts off with the obvious scary track playing. Usually one of the children starts seeing things that aren't right and starts slowly advancing towards the disturbance, because horror movie.
The soundtrack gets louder and louder until you are stuck in your seat covering your ears and just hoping for the obvious jump scare to pop up. But It lets you off easy, it pretty much tells you when you are supposed to be scared. The ear breaking music nearly always stops abruptly a few seconds before the jump scare. Thanks, movie.
The sound design is horrible. The loud music indicating an oncoming jump scare gets very ineffective. Along that, the original soundtrack was really nothing special. Guess it was called the "Horror Movie Stock Soundtrack" or something.
Even more annoying was the use of real songs in the movie.
I have to back this up first by complimenting the opening scene. Piano music is heard when Bill builds the paper boat for Georgie and when Georgie goes downstairs, their mother is seen to be playing the music we hear. It's a nice touch, though nothing special. The blending of the soundtrack into the world made me excited for the music.
When the kids throw rocks at the sociopath bully kid, Antisocial by Anthrax plays. It is a good song but in this scene it felt so weird just because in the opening scene the piano was coming from a real piano there, the music really was there. Now when the kids stone the bully, I couldn't stop thinking that Anthrax might be somewhere there playing. It's stupid but it made the out of place song be even more weird there.
When studying the history of the town the kids go to Ben's place. There, Beverly happens to close the door, because script and gotta make the crowd laugh, revealing Ben's New Kids on the Block poster. It is really stupid that the "new kid" in school listens to New Kids on the Block. It's like "Hey it's fun and clever the new kid listens to New Kids on the Block see what we did there ha ha New Kids so lame ha ha the lone fat kid listens to it". I can see the screenwriter drooling over the script paper. But yeah so Bev opens the door to reveal the NKotB poster, and guess what, a New Kids on the Block song plays for a few seconds! Mr. Screenwriter, you are a modern genius.
I hated the kids.
The annoying meme machine with ridiculous eyeglasses was the worst. His character was so obviously written because the of the sequel. I can already see him being equally immature and getting his mature moment of heroism in the sequel. Can't remember how it went in the miniseries, though. Eh.
Beverly's actor had to be the oldest looking 15 year old they could find. She could be as someone's big sister in the movie. It's not a major flaw but still annoyed me.
The biggest flaw is that the kids don't matter. The only kid who matters here is Bill. The movie is such a stereotypical hero's journey. Of course, he also gets the girl in the end. The movie would've worked so much better if they'd build the movie around Bill's journey to grow up while searching his brother.
Any of the other kids could've been taken away from the movie and it wouldn't had changed anything. The kid whose mother is overly sensitive and protective? The kid who lost his parents in the fire? The kid with glasses? The new kid? All worthless to the plot and the nonexistent team dynamic.
They really don't feel they like to hang out together. They just are, or end up, spending time together. All their time together feels so artificial. I wish I could've immersed myself with the world and the Losers Club but it doesn't feel real. The kids don't feel real. They feel like screenwriter gave them things to say and the director told them to say the things in a way they thought the audience would feel funny.
Pennywise is also there. The clown. A critic stated that the more they show It, the less scary It becomes. It is very well said.
My initial reaction was laughing my ass off when Pennywise tried to lure Georgie into the sewer in the opening scene. He sounded so comedic in a totally wrong way. He sounded like he tried too hard to be funny and scary. In the miniseries, Tim Curry's Pennywise maintained a voice which was fun and scary at all times, without changing from clown voice to a scary voice.
I really don't have much good to say about it. It scared me a few times, the opening scene had its moments, the painted lady with the twisted face was cool, Ben the thick kid had a fun introduction.