"Ain't nothing like a little fear to make a man tremble."

Rating: 10/10 (10 September 2017)

For viewers with coulrophobia - beware! That's a fear of clowns if you don't know, and if you don't know if you have a fear of clowns, you WILL know after you see this film. Bill Skarsgard's take on Pennywise the Clown in this remake of the 1980 TV mini-series is a masterful interpretation, delivered for a twenty first century audience that's been desensitized by over the top gore and horror of recent vintage. And that's not meant to take anything away from Tim Curry's portrayal in the earlier film, he brought his own brand of selective nuance to that characterization.
I liked the idea that the story takes place in 1989 as opposed to the Fifties in Stephen King's novel. With a twenty seven year cycle between appearances of the evil incarnate known as Pennywise, the second chapter will bring events relatively current into a 2016 time frame. The story reinforces the 1989 time frame with a movie marquee featuring the first modern day "Batman" movie along with the "Lethal Weapon II' sequel. A side view of the same theater also mentions "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5", a nice touch for horror fans of that series.
I agree with a fair number of commenters on this site that mention the natural camaraderie of the members in 'The Loser's Club'. Some of them, like Mike and Stan are underplayed a bit, but not every one of them can be a standout. The manner in which the nominal leader Billy (Jaeden Lieberher) was written was very well done, in a way that handled his little brother's death as real, but holding out some hope that maybe, just maybe there's the possibility that he's a missing person. As the viewer of course, we know that Georgie was a Pennywise victim right at the outset, even though we get teases later on in the story that the evil entity is working through the guise of Billy's little brother.
As far as the scary elements go, I've probably seen enough horror films to have become somewhat jaded over the years relative to jump scare moments and other nasty surprises. The one scene I thought was outstanding was when Pennywise emerged from the slide show presentation in Billy's garage, that was exceptionally well done. What really made the film work for me was the bonding between the seven 'Losers', all of whom entered into a blood pact to respond to a future crisis when the time should arrive.
With that, the one disappointment I experienced was that there was no 'after credits' sequence to give us a hint of what to expect in the second chapter. If you hang around until the theater employees are ready to throw you out so they can clean up, all you get is that maniacal laugh from Pennywise to send you off. At least he could have popped out of the screen.