Starts Too Strong but Still a Good Hour and a Half

Rating: 8/10 (17 September 2017)

Unfortunately its two and a half hours. I liked this movie, it was a good movie for the most part and the first ten minutes are extremely scary. Pennywise in the sewer, luring a child closer before ultimately stealing him away is one of the most memorable scenes I have seen this year. Unfortunately, it sets the bar too high for the rest of the movie and it never reaches that point again. An the simple reason is that it hows too much. There is no mystery as to what Pennywise does, it lays everything out on the bed like the clothes did for you when you were twelve. He rips a kid's arm off for God's sake, there is no reason to feel that Billy is justified in that his brother still may be alive somewhere when we just saw the kid get ate nor any reason to wonder what happened to the other kids that went missing. This makes the movie grow stale after a while, it still good for a while but eventually it overstays its welcome.
Perhaps that makes it a problem, there is too much Pennywise. At the very least too much direct activity from him. Skarsgard was good at the role, he was wonderfully imposing in front of the young cast but was fairly single minded. He is there to eat kids, and that was pretty much it. He lacks the maliciousness of Tim Curry, who drew far more pleasure tormenting his victims before the hunt. Skarsgard instead pops up in just about every scene, not as a malevolent presence but as a physical flesh and blood monster chasing the kids around around with little exception. As I said, there is no mystery about him and his intent is abundantly clear. Seeing him again becomes less about his intentions and more the signal for the next chase. Its still scary but gradually is hurt by diminishing returns. I was done after the haunted crack house but still had the final confrontation in the sewers to go through.
The movie also managed to hit my biggest pet peeve, swearing children. Smart mouthed children are fine, even though he was supposed to be annoying I was fine with Richie from the TV movie, but in this day and age it seems to be that wise guy means foul mouthed little brat. This Richie is especially egregious, from credits to credits every line has to have a swear or mention of the size of his penis.