Stellar cast, great acting, good material

Rating: 8/10 (19 January 2020)

... but not much else. I may be tired of all the sequels and remakes and prequels and all this regurgitated crap. I mean, we all knew how the story was going to unfold, even if the ending is slightly different and now Maturin is an Native American drug root and Pennywise sprouting spider legs prompts a The Thing reenactment.
My point is that the first film was always the better one, even in other adaptations. The children's fear is huge because they are children and their courage is so much more important. Pennywise was barely articulate in the first film, now he is talking and having agents that do his bidding. The rules have changed dramatically. It's not a creature that devours every 27 years, it's one that is rebooted every 27 years. In the first film they were all friends, in this they are adults that have not seen each other in decades. How am I going to feel anything for them, regardless of the quality of the acting?
Bottom line: the experience has to be different for people who don't remember the Tim Curry version or that have not read the book. Perhaps waiting a few years and then watching both films back to back offers a different enjoyment level. For me, it was just a better version of something that had already been done and brought nothing new to the table. It was scarier, but somehow it felt less meaningful. And yeah, the ending was always going to suck.