A movie that doesn't know what it wants to be.

Rating: 5/10 (23 December 2019)

This movie can't make its mind up.
The preceding IT movie of this current crop was one I truly enjoyed. That's because, whatever its virtues or failures as a horror movie, it was a movie that had a heart. It was essentially a movie about friendship and growing up and, to use a well-worn clichÃ©, coming of age. It was essentially another 'Stand by Me' but with lots of CGI. This movie has none of that heart, but it tries to. It tries to evoke sentimentality and nostalgia for the first movie and the band of kids at its heart - the Losers. But it also wants to be a horror movie. It never succeeds in marrying these two themes and subsequently fails at achieving either one individually. There is too much CGI to be truly scary. It just does not seem real. And the CGI is at the expense of building atmosphere and tension. The movie also tries to be somewhat of a psychological thriller, as each of protagonists face their past fears and failures. Finally, the movie goes out of its way to include as many throwbacks to the characters introduced in the first movie as it can, even when they really have nothing to do with the current plot. Trying to be so many things at once means this movie is almost three hours long. You notice the running time too. I was looking at my watch well before it got to he end.
To be honest, I didn't hate It Chapter 2, but I didn't like it either. At the end all I thought was 'meh'. Maybe you will like it better.
Just in passing, I can't end without commenting on one of the opening scenes of the movie and I apologise for any spoilers. In the very first scene of the movie we are taken to the Derry carnival where a couple of young men are enjoying the sideshows. One of these men, it is revealed, is a former Derry resident and the other is his boyfriend. These two attract the ire of some local louts who proceed to do a bit of very brutal gay bashing. All through this scene I was wondering if one of these men was one of our protagonists from the previous movie and how this act of violence fitted in with the rest of the plot. Turns out this incident had nothing to do with the rest of the plot and the characters involved - the two young men and the louts - played no further part in the remainder of the movie. So my question is, why have this scene at all?? In hindsight, its existence for no reason seems sort of homophobic and more than a tad offensive. You may disagree, but that's the way it seemed to me.