poor script, clichÃ© jump scares re-writing of the great story :(

Rating: 5/10 (7 September 2017)

I read this book back in the 80's. Tonight I saw yet another film adaption of the same book. Once again they miss the mark with yet another Stephen King Classic. I'm not going to say it was a terrible flick. Because it wasn't. It had some redeeming qualities. The humor of Richie "the mouth" Tozziur was, in fact, the only thing that actually "Floated" down here.
The biggest drawback was the rewriting of the story to suit the uncultured minds of millennials and others who have never read a Stephen King Book. They took what was one of the most imaginative scary stories of the last 50 years and turned it all into a Hollywood clichÃ©. complete with non-stop Jump Scares that scare no one but teenagers.
The casting was world class, but the script falls short and turns great dialog into nothing more than a group of kids insulting each other for 2 hours. And the strongest character in the movie ended up being "The Denzel in distress" routine. AGH so typical.... So boring. so clichÃ©, SO Predictable...
Then There's the worst part.... Pennywise actually manages to capture the members of the losers club and yet... HE LETS THEM ALL GO... MORE THAN ONCE... WTF???? It's so clichÃ© and brain dead in this aspect that the more I ponder how ridiculous it was, the more I begin disliking this movie. It lived in the sewers, the reason it comes out of the sewers is because it is a hunter. It hunts because it's hungry. It doesn't hunt for the thrill of scaring little children. It hunts because it is hungry and loves the taste of blood. Predators don't capture and release their prey if they are hungry, They kill them and eat them.
But what I will never under stand is the role reversal of some of the main characters. WTF? Am I the only person on this earth who has bothered to read these books? My only guess in switching the love interest from Ben and Bev, to Bill and Bev is because America's obsession with hating overweight people could never accept the fact that the "Fat Kid" could be the main character and the "hero" who gets the girl.
Then There's Mike's character... They sure didn't want to give the black guy too much screen time. and then they also switched his character with Ben... WTF? Ben was not the Town History buff... Guess they just want to make Ben the biggest loser by making him the one who stays behind in the town? Is it too much for the millennial mind set of "Survival of the cutest" to grasp that people who aren't "pretty" are also people of value too?
Who knows? But why rewrite the god damned story? There's a reason why Stephen King sold millions of copies of this book:
Because he's a great story teller and is considered to be one of the finest of the last 50 years.... so what ego driven Hollywood executive decided the script writers of this adaptation had better vision than the already tried and true hit making story?
Out of five stars, I reluctantly give it 3. However, it does not deserve 3 stars. it deserves 2 out of 5. I only rate it three because of the humor of Richie and because the parts that did stick with the story looked great, the casting was great and the Clown was a million freaking times scarier than that stupid Tim Curry that was laughable at best from the 90's adaption.