Second verse a little worse than the first

Rating: 5/10 (7 September 2019)

I quite enjoyed the first film, while I didn't think it was overly amazing I found it fresh and a lot of fun, so naturally I was interested and excited to see the second installment.
I knew of the second half of the story, I knew what it entailed and what it was about, It's this 27 year cycle where events repeat themselves as pennywise returns, but instead of playing to the strengths of that Idea it feels as though it's more just going through the motions for me.
I just feel as though we've done all this before but in a more interesting way. In the first film, the kids were first learning of the monster and had to find time throughout their lives to deal with it. It was hard for the kdis as they were constantly restricted by the family/ school and social elements of their lives, but in this film they are all adults and don't have to deal with those issues. Not to say they have no issues or the ones they do have should be dismissed but it just feels way less engaging to me knowing that at any point they could just up and leave if they so desired.
Right from the beginning they have a goal in mind of reuniting and killing the monster again, but they have to spend the whole time meandering around to find each of their special mcguffins before they can do what they came here to do.
This is all just used as a way for each of the characters to have a bunch of individual scenes with pennywise, resulting in what feels like way more pennywise moments than the first.
I'm sure a lot of people will thoroughly enjoy these moments but for me, as a result of there being so many, they are in turn much shorter and left a much smaller impact on me than the first. I vividly remember the projector scene from the first, I struggle to think of any really memorable scene from this aside from the finale.
On that: without spoilers, they keep eluding to the idea that the ending might have been changed from the book as one character is infamously a writer who writes bad endings. I haven't read the book myself but regardless of if they changed the ending or not I still felt a little unsatisfied. It all just begs the question of 'why couldn't they have done that the first time?"
And I think that is ultimately my problem with this film, and I know people are not going to like me saying this but i really feel like it does not need to exist. I KNOW it's part of the book and for many a very vital part but It really does feel like the first film just did everything this film did, only better. I heard somewhere that one of the hardest parts of making this film was condensing this second part of the story into only one film, and it does make me wonder if they ultimately split it into 3 parts and gave everything more time it needed to grow it might have been better.
One of the things that instantly comes to mind is the ultimately pointless use of the return of Henry Bowers, he is set up early on but before we know it he's done and swept under the rug to be forgotten, If this film was split into 2 I suspect he would have been used better.
I guess what I'm trying to say, If I didn't know there was a second part to the story after watching the first film I would have been completely satisfied just believing the first film was it. I don't believe this film and part of the story really adds anything interesting or necessary that enhances the first film. I know this wasn't the case at all but it feels like one of those films where it feels like they have no idea for a sequel in mind and just ended up retreading the first, that is at least how I feel on the matter.