Some great elements but the story is a disaster.

Rating: 3/10 (11 September 2019)

The good: this is an extremely well produced film with extraordinary actor for this genre and a great cameo by Steven King.
The bad: The excellent actors were wasted on a story that tried way too hard to be a teenage bullying lesson wit a tiresome number of failed gotcha scenes. The emotional catharsis (the realization that belief makes your reality, we are a reflection of others' opinions, etc etc barf) didn't work at all and its attempt was an rehash of ideas we've seen done well many times. The extra-long runtime seems to come from attempting to cram every kind of little jump-scare scene, all of which were utterly predictable failures with way too many ghosty variations of the "monster" that made It less and less scary and less clear as a character.
In all, this was a disappointing, washy and welcome ending for It that didn't leave me wanting any more.