Watch 'IT'

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2018)

The year is 1989 and in a small town called Derry in Maine, children are disappearing in mysterious circumstances. A group of 7 friends discover that a shape-shifting monster who disguises itself as a clown is the one responsible for the children's disappearances. Realising that no-one will believe their story, the 7 friends must band together to defeat the clown in order to keep Derry safe again...
I watched the mini TV Series that this film was based upon a number of years ago so was intrigued by this film and wanted to see how it compared. In my opinion, this is a slight notch down on the TV series, but is still very good overall.
The film has quite a long and rather slow build up, but to its credit it never feels dull or boring. Director Andy Muschietti directs with a degree of skill and competency - a great number of the scenes with Pennywise and the children are creepy and chilling, but this, in part, is down to some wonderful camera work. The cinematography and some of the sets are also top notch and as a whole the film is professionally mounted and well made.
The young cast are all on pretty good form and put in reasonable performances; they were all likeable enough with the possible exception of the Ritchie character who could be annoying at times. However, the real star of the show is Bill Skarsgard whose turn as Pennywise the clown was energetic and rather unsettling - the film would be nothing without him and he is every bit as good in this film as Tim Curry was in the original.
There are a couple of very slight weaknesses with the film; character development is a tad on the weak side, the dialogue and parts of the script aren't quite up to the same standard as the TV Series and I also didn't feel that the kids had quite the same camaraderie here as they did in the TV Series. I felt a tight bond between the characters in the original and sadly I didn't quite get the same feeling here with the kids in this film.
Overall though, this has far more strengths than weaknesses and perhaps the only other thing that may upset some people is the fact that the film has been split into two halves (this seems to be the done thing these days in order for filmmakers to get more money, but I think it's necessary to the story to split the film into part 1 and 2 - anyone who has seen the TV Series will understand why). Like I said in my summary above just watch 'IT.'