Please, Stop

Rating: 4/10 (14 September 2019)

That's what I spent most of the movie thinking. Just...stop. Just...don't.
I came to the cinema excited, certain that I was in for a great movie. I was wrong. Oh boy, was I wrong. Throughout the first maybe thirty minutes I was bored - the movie took its sweet time gearing up, but still I held onto hope that the latter parts would make up for it, but as the movie droned on, my hopes slowly dwindled. At the end I was squirming in my seat, bored out of my mind and wishing for all the main characters to just die so that I would be released from this torture.
As I watched, I tried desperately to figure out just what was it about the movie that made it so...bland. What was the main difference between the first IT movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and this one, which I was thoroughly disappointed by? And I think I figured it out. Of course, the movie has more than just one problem. The characters, Bill Hader's in particular, were bland at best and infuriating at most, and the predictable attempts at comic relief just irritated me. As a viewer, I could see most of the one-liners and half-baked punchlines coming from a mile away, and in my opinion, and all of the jokes just seemed so out of place.
The story line was dragged out, it was repetitive and mostly uninteresting, with the same jumpscares and just what were those zombie thingies? They were laughable. And when you find yourself smothering a laugh when you're supposed to be scared, that's how you know a horror movie SUUUUCKS.
Anyway, back to the main reason this movie blows. A story, which worked so very well when its main protagonists were children, just doesn't work when the kids have been replaced with adults. Perhaps it's because the main villain takes on the form of a clown, and a clown chasing adults just seems...silly somehow. I know, I know, it can be done, has been done very well, but Pennywise just doesn't cut it. The clown is a great character, and he pretty much carried the movie, but his creepiness, his malice, "shines" the most when he's interacting with children. The way he talks to them, the way he lures them in, the balloons...it all just sends shivers down your spine. But with adults, not so much. The filmmakers perhaps realized that themselves, beause there is very little interaction of Pennywise with the Losers club until the very end, and the main characters are mostly chased around by weird zombies and an asylum escapee, who...you know what, let's not get into that.
And the movie doesn't even give Pennywise a proper send-off. The way he's defeated is childish and laughable and annoying all at once - which can again be mostly chalked up to the fact that the main protagonists are adults. Holding hands and chanting? Overcoming their fears and realizing that without their own fear, Pennywise is nothing? Those aren't exactly grown-up methods.
The final scenes were just painful. I wanted to leave.
There are many other little and bigger things I was annoyed at, but the movie was mostly just bland, like your average C-grade horror movie. It's kind of sad.
PS. Stanley, what the frick? "I am scared I'm going to die, so I'll just kill myself?" How is that a conclusion you came to?
Also, don't call yourselves the Losers Club, PLEASE. You're adults now, the irony isn't cute anymore.