They tried to make It Epic...

Rating: 4/10 (16 September 2019)

So before anything, I'd like to say that I really enjoyed the first movie, I gave it an 8/10 and I stand by that grade. There are a lot of things that I don't like about the first movie, but overall I think the good outweighs the bad. What I particularly did not enjoy about the first film as much was all the spooky clown stuff and the jump scares and what I really loved was the coming-of-age stuff and the characters and how well they blended together.
Unfortunately, in It: Chapter 2 it's a lot less character stuff and way more spooky clown stuff that seems to be there to appeal to teenagers. I don't want to take anything away from Bill Skaarsgard, because I think he's great as Pennywise, it's not his performance, but the execution of most of the scares that I think is really poorly done and not at all creative. Every single scare in this movie follows the exact same structure, they are all predictable, you know exactly when it's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen. It's not scary, it's annoying.
Although I did not enjoy this movie, there were aspects of it that showed promise. Of course, the cast is great, a lot of awesome talent here and the performances are good, especially Bill Hader, who is really great and hilarious, as far as I'm concerned, he's the best part of the movie, by far. Even though the cast is great, I don't think they mesh together as well as the kids do in the first movie. There is this one I would say great scene in this film in a Chinese restaurant where all of these characters are meeting for the first time, they're joking around, talking, it's really cool character interactions. And even the crazy stuff that happens during the later part of that scene is really well executed. The problem begins with two things, I believe. 1. This movie is filled with flashbacks to when they were kids, who are very noticeably digitally altered and I'm pretty sure they did something to their voices too. It's very distracting and took me out of the experience. 2. When they go and find their tokens, essentially the exact same scene happens over and over again but with different characters, none of the scares work, they are predictable and stupid. However, the scene with Jessica Chastain and the old lady has some promising moments to it, namely the stuff that happens in the background, which is really cool, but it's a tiny moment in the film. Then there's the scene with Eddy and the leper in the basement, which then suddenly plays the song "Angel of the Morning" for some reason and it's very awkward, it only plays for like 3 seconds, with no fade in or out, it's bizarre, to say the least.
The ending of the film is essentially identical to the first movie, only BIGGER with a bunch of unnecessary CGI and it's just a mess of a movie, I don't even know what else to say. It feels incredibly long for what it needs to be, the scares don't work and even with this much talent all over the place, It: Chapter 2 hardly justifies its own existence. You could say that the story progresses because they kill It in the end, but in that case why not just do this final death in the first movie. I think that would have been much better and even if this movie has small moments, overall it is messy, loud and obnoxious.