Too many balls to juggle

Rating: 5/10 (6 February 2018)

The movie IT uses lonely children's vulnerability, in order to scare the audience through them. The character Pennywise uses the children worst fears in order to catch them, and does it when they are most vulnerable, when they are lonely, but the movie ends with the children sticking together in order to overcome their fears, which is also the main theme. The movie can easily be compared to the first episode of the Tv-series Stranger things, although Stranger things doesn't deal with loneliness nearly as much, but sticking together is also a main theme here. It's also a group of children trying to take matters into their own hands, in order to help their friend or friends. Both Stranger things and IT sets up the characters very well, by using the different characters differences to establish their personalities quickly, and both does it very well, even though there is a lot of characters to deal with. Stranger things have plenty of time to do this in the first episode, as there still are nine episodes afterwards, but IT only have 3 hours, and with all the characters to introduce, while juggling with a lot of other balls, it quickly becomes a mess. Often the scenes donesn't seem to move the story anywhere, just repeats things that were already told to the audience. It fails to dive deeper into the subjects of the movie, as the surface of the subject is just told over and over again, not creating anything exciting or gripping. Pennywise doesn't work either. Already from the start we see what he is fully capable of, and get what he is all about, ruining everything mysterious about him. People are afraid of the unfamiliar, but Pennywise is familiar already from the start. He is also very predictable, as he always appears in creepy places, and doesn't break your expectations by appearing in unexpected situations. The only thing that wakes curiosity about him, is the line he keeps repeating about floating, and the different well-designed forms he can take. Though he is very well integrated in the theme, the theme isn't very well integrated in the movie, as it is thrown at your face in any given situation. Themes work when it is expressed between the lines. IT manages to have most of the scenes work towards the theme, but there isn't anything hidden or mysterious about the theme, like in other popular horror movies with a good theme, such as the sixth the sense, which also deals with loneliness and vulnerability.
In short, the thing IT does the best, is the characters and their relations, but falls short in other areas.