Underwhelming

Rating: 5/10 (25 July 2018)

IT was underwhelming. I have not read the book and I barely remember the first movie, so I'm commenting on it as a standalone movie.
I didn't like how IT's properties are not well defined. When can he appear and when not? Why did IT rip the first child's arm off with its teeth and then later was just french kissing the Jewish child instead of instantaneously ripping its face off? Were there no other children in that town (well, there were as we saw in the school scenes)? Why did IT pick this particular gang? How is it possible that children go missing every exactly 27 years and no one but the fat kid noticed the pattern? Too much suspension of disbelief for my tastes.
When the three kids entered the house, why did they wander off one by one when they knew what they were facing at this point? They're supposed to be scared. The natural response is to stick together. I hate nonsensical things like this in movies just to make for fake suspense. Since Bev was the only one willing to enter the house in the first place (did not raise her hand), why did she not go in with them? The scene were they leave one by one at the end was cringy and to Stand By Me-ish. Also, I think the fat kid had done enough in this movie to get the girl (that would have been original at least). Stutter boy was just going from one stupid decision to another the whole movie.
I also didn't like the Goonies/Stranger Things atmosphere (made stronger by one of the kids being in Stranger Things) with the cliche rural America friendships, the bikes, the token girl and the token black or asian kid. It's been overdone and I loved it at its prime when I was about that age, but it needs to go away for a while again.