Rather disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (8 September 2019)

The sequel to the 2017 hit follows the adult versions of the Losers Club, as they confront Pennywise 27 years later to kill him once and for all. I liked the first "It," however I don't feel it is as good as people and critics say it is, and does contain some noticeable flaws. "It: Chapter Two" does feature some impressive aspects, but overall feels very long, repetitive, and filled with script troubles. The casting choices, which I'm sure is pretty much a consensus, we're brilliant, and the adult versions of the kids from the first film truly look like the grownup versions of their characters. Along with the casting of the losers club, Bill Skarsgård is back, and really shines in his performance. There is some genuinely cool imagery, and it is fun to see the certain abominable figures that Pennywise manifests himself into. While I didn't wholly dislike this film, I do have problems with this movie that I couldn't stop thinking about throughout the film and need to be addressed. First off, the characters are so much more bland than they were in the latter film, featuring almost no character arches at all. What made the characters so much better in the first film was how the character's personalities and traits changed throughout the course of the film because of their teamwork and the adversity they were facing. In "It: Chapter Two," there is not really any change of heart in the characters, and most of them feel the same from the beginning until the end. Certain characters may have somewhat of an arch, but it didn't feel very well earned, and sort of predictable. This film is extremely long as well, and features very little tension, (with the exception of one scene in my opinion) with a heavy emphasis of jump scares surprisingly. The formula for how the scenes escalated became very repetitious due to the focus on providing a jump scare. Another issue I had with this film is one I share with the predecessor, and that is the over reliance on CGI. While CGI can look good, this film is scattered with very obvious CGI, and it takes away from the film's reality and scariness. One plot point tries to explain Pennywise's origins, and it felt very jumbled and confusing. Overall, this film was entertaining, but disappointing for the fact that I expected better filmmaking and story writing quality. It's not a terrible horror film, but isn't really much different from a lot of other things that you may see out there.