Points deducted for unnecessarily super-long movie...

Rating: 5/10 (16 September 2019)

First of all, I have to admit that the only reason I saw this movie was because Jessica Chastain-who I would gladly watch in a 2 hour film of her reading from the phone book-was in it! Also, I still haven't seen the first "It" movie, so I went in hoping that everything previous of which I was not aware would be self-explanatory! Largely, through flashbacks, it was! I learned that this film was directed by Andy Muschitta, who had previously directed Ms. Chastain in a very good horror film called "Mama", so I felt confident that I was in for a good cinematic experience! For about the first hour and a half, I was: the story was involving, and the film was quite well-made up to this point! Unfortunately, it went on for what seemed like the most interminable additional hour in the history of time! Attempts to make what should've stayed a small, tightly-woven tale into a forever escalatingly epic scarefest greatly diminished the effectiveness of the story! There were enough good performances and good moments to recommend the story to any horror fan, but, Mother of God, if ever there was a movie in dire need of editing, it would be "It Chapter Two"! And that's a real shame! In trying too hard to wow its audience, the film instead ultimately burns a lot of the creative good will generated by its infinitely better first half!