Good and Bad and Could Have Been Great

Rating: 6/10 (7 September 2019)

First, I had such high hopes for this movie, so expectations were at the top. The Good - the acting was above average with Hader being the biggest surprise. The casting was absolutely perfect - each adult actor looked like the child actor and made that aspect more believable. Also the CGI was very good. The Not So Good was the feeling you watched a scene and wondered about its purpose. The takeaway was the movie could have been trimmed and cleaned up and cut down from its 3 HOUR length. The Bad - the length, as I found myself checking my watch, which is a killer for any film. And there were characters that basically served no purpose in the plot or it's direction. Why were Henry and his burned up buddy even in the film? Take his scenes out and you have a 2 hour movie that was a lot tighter.
I had a bad feeling very early on when it became apparent that the film was relying more on jump scares rather than creepy and eeriness that the book, the TV miniseries, and part 1 created. Some of the jump scares were very well done, but that was not the type of film I was expecting or hoping for.
If you did not have high expectations or expect a film similar to part 1, this is an excellent jump scare horror film - but personally it was not the kind of film I wanted to see.