Nowhere near as good as the first, but still has a lot of good stuff

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2019)

Probably the best and most horrific moment in this movie is the opening, where the gay couple gets brutally attacked, one of them being thrown over a bridge into the river only to be eaten by Pennywise. That scene is horrifying and great, and the closest we get in this film to the Georgie scene from the first film.
After that great opener, the film doesn't seem to know what to do.
I haven't read much of the book, but from what I've heard, the Adult scenes in the book are not the main focus of the story, and the child sequences are given a lot more development. Which makes sense, as the story is about overcoming childhood trauma and how trauma impacts you years after you grew up. However, when the films were originally pitched where the first film is about the kids, and the second film is about the adults coming back, I think the screenwriters weren't quite prepared for how much of an undertaking that would be.
The movie rushes through the intro scenes where we see where the adult Loser's Club ends up, seemingly in a rush to get them all back to Derry and have more Pennywise shenanigans, but when they all get there, the film turns into a fetch quest, where each of them has to retrieve an object from their past to sacrifice in a 'Ritual of Chud' in order to defeat IT once and for all. This fetch quest takes up most of the almost 3 hour movie, before a 1/2 hour climax in the sewers.
During each character's mini adventure, it cuts between a previously unseen scene from their childhood (ie, a newly filmed scene with the kid actors between their breakup and reunification to save Beverley) and a scene with the adult versions coming across a similar scare. These scenes range in quality, my personal favourite being Beverley's scene that was mostly shown in the teaser trailer a few months back. Save for the ending where the creepy grandma turns into a CGI monster that isn't scary at all. Bill's mini adventure is also decent, and the longest, as he meets a young boy who reminds him of Georgie, and attempts to save him from Pennywise. The other scenes are either okay or completely forgettable.
Speaking of forgettable, the bully Henry Bowers, who kills his dad and attempts to kill the Losers in the first film, comes back after breaking out of a mental asylum. I thought he would be a bigger secondary antagonist then he ended up being, because after stabbing a couple of people in non-fatal areas, he ends up dying rather quickly after being introduced. A wasted opportunity for sure, not to mention why Pennywise needed his help in the first place? Who knows.
Finally, the climax, where Pennywise reveals its true form. In the book, It's described as a giant spider, which the original 1990's miniseries attempted to do with mixed results. For some reason, though, the film instead made Pennywise's true form a Spider-centaur, where IT still looks like a clown on the top half, but has long spider legs on his body. I guess they wanted to keep Bill Skarsgard's great performance as IT and not overshadow him with a CGI spider, but again, it's a missed opportunity to just go crazy with a really fun design for ITs final form.
Overall, this film has several missed opportunities, but there are definitely things that are worth praising. The casting of the adult versions of the kid characters was incredible. All of them look great and act the roles well. The acting overall was incredible, and if casting directors could get Academy Awards, they would get all of them for this film. There were still quite a good few horror moments, and a few good laughs.
As good as the first? Not at all, but a good bit of fun in the cinema? absolutely.