IT is a mess :(

Rating: 5/10 (6 September 2019)

Boy is IT Chapter 2 messy. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't thrilled with this movie. It's far too long. It's almost 3 hours, and it feels longer. The pacing is brutal in the first half, and by the time you get to the third act, you just feel too exhausted to feel completely invested. Where the first movie worked for me as it's own self contained movie, Chapter 2 is definitely a companion piece that expects you to watch it immediately after the last movie. Which makes sense as they made it clear that Chapter 1 was just taking the kids portion of the book, and then Chapter 2 would be about them grown up. I will say this movie delivered on good casting of the adult counterparts, because everyone genuinely does a good job. Bill Hader is easily the best part of the film, he had some of the funniest gags I've seen this year. However that leads me to my next issue, it's way too comedic. For being a horror film, its not scary. The humor overtakes any tension it wants me to feel when it's dropped right in the middle of a scare. The first one did this too, but I didn't feel it was as obnoxious as this. Especially when most of your scares are pop outs and loud noises. There were scenes I just tuned out because the tone was so all over the place that, I just didn't know what to feel. A guy in our theatre fell asleep and was snoring so loud, we all just laughed because... yeah, it was kinda boring at times! All my problems pretty much trace back to the book and why it's damn near impossible to adapt and make great. It's a mess of a book. While Bill Skarsgard is chilling to watch as Pennywise, and the coming of age story works well in places, it just all doesn't flow well together here as it did last time. I will commend both movies for trying to mainstream the material, and for REALLY trying. Both films have engaging performances, and some really nice cinematography, but I just don't feel as eager to watch Ch 2 as much on repeat viewings. The ending was the equivalent of Lord of the Rings where it takes that much time and investment out of you, to the point where the ending overstays it's welcome. It Ch 2 isn't the worst movie I've seen this year, but it was disappointing. 5/10