I liked it despite some obvious problems.

Rating: 7/10 (8 September 2019)

One of the most anticipated movies of the year has been director Andy Muschietti's IT CHAPTER TWO, the second part of the his adaptation of Stephen King's much beloved and mammoth 1986 novel, which had been adapted before in a much beloved TV miniseries in 1990. The first film, released two years ago, was both a box office and critical success, more than that, this new big screen version of King's story resonated with audiences, drawn to the story of a group of misfit teen agers, who dub themselves The Losers, and who must confront an ancient evil entity haunting their small Maine town of Derry in the summer of 1989; this entity, who presents himself to the world as a malevolent clown named Pennywise, lives on fear, especially the fear of children. It's a great coming of age story, with some of King's most vividly realized characters, not mention one of his most terrifying villains.
This second film, which centers around Bill, Beverly, Richie, Mike, Ben, Eddie, and Stan - The Losers - 27 years later and now adults, who must now return to Derry and take on a resurrected Pennywise. And it has problems, not the least of which is the nearly three hour running time, but more to the point, a story line that is overstuffed with a lot of business. These were same problems with King's thousand plus page novel, which I have always thought would have worked better as two books. The movie does get off to a strong start, where we are introduced to the adult counterparts to the kids we met in the first movie, all of whom are scared in some way by the trauma they endured in Derry - Beverly is married to an abusive man, Eddie is still a germaphobe, Bill is a once successful writer now blocked - who come home and catch up over a meal in a Chinese restaurant, where things take a turn. In the second half, the group (sans suicide Stan) ventures out on their own, attempting to reconnect with their childhoods, and to find a personal totem that time that will help them defeat Pennywise once and for all. Here we are treated to essentially the same scene over and over, where Bill, Beverly, and the rest, visit an abandoned movie theater, and old apartment, a drugstore, the park, have a flashback, and are confronted by Pennywise. And boy is this section heavy on jump scares, so much so, that after awhile you can see them coming. To me, jump scares are the equivalent of a sugar high. It's also very heavy on the CGI, some of which is better than others - I was impressed with the long tongued leper who torments Eddie, the monstrous Paul Bunyan statue that comes to life and chases Richie, and the old lady thing Beverly encounters. But I didn't find any of it particularly scary though. In the third act, our heroes descend deeper into the sewers under Derry for a final confrontation with Pennywise, and this plays out much more like a giant monster film than anything else. It's a satisfying ending, even with all the obvious CGI, but I understand if anyone finds this wearying. There is still the Ritual of Chud (not the mutant cannibals from that other 80's horror movie), but much is left out from King's book, which for many, went cosmically off the rails in the finale, which included the giant turtle Mataurin, who spat out the universe. It's a classic example of something that might have worked on the page, but would have looked ludicrous on the screen. Many think King attempted a concept in that finale that he failed to pull off, though many fans love it. Also missing are subplots involving Beverly's awful husband and Bill's movie star wife. A central problem with this second film, which was true for the book as well, is that the adult Losers' story lacks the sense of wonder, discovery, and triumph that was palpable in their teenage versions.
Still, despite all of its faults, I could not dislike this movie. James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Andy Bean, and James Ransome are first rate as the grown up Bill, Beverly, Richie, Mike, Eddie and Ben; all of them give winning performances, totally selling me that they are the older versions of the young actors who played them in the first film, which could have been a problem when those young actors show up in flashbacks (though some have been noticeably digitally de-aged, because kids change a lot in two years). Bill Skarsgard owns Pennywise every bit as much as Tim Curry did in the miniseries. There are a number of scenes that really work, starting with Pennywise luring a little girl under the bleachers at a ball game that is scary and terrible in the way great horror movies should be; the hate crime murder of a young homosexual that shows that things in the Derry of 2016 are just as awful as ever; Ben and Beverly reaching for each other in the final showdown when Pennywise is about to drown them in their own fears. Stephen King himself turns up in a funny cameo, where he chides the adult Bill Denbrough for the bad endings of Bill's books, a knowing wink to King's own fans that have made the same complaint for years. Director Peter Bogdanovich turns up as well to make the some complaint. And though I've disdained CGI plenty, there is one creature that is a nod to one of the most infamous effects from John Carpenter's THE THING that I loved. I also like the tweak Muschietti did with Stan's suicide, something absent from the book.
And if any producers are looking for other Stephen King works to bring to the big screen, I'd like to put in my two cents for an adaptation of FROM A BUICK 8, and if anyone really wants to take a risk, take on RAGE from the Bachman books. The latter would be quite controversial, but never timelier in this political climate.