So Long, so flat

Rating: 3/10 (9 September 2019)

Honestly, this movie was just ultimately boring. Personally, I'd probably leave it at that, and also, in a way, I feel that I have certainly been dragging my feet when it came to writing this review (though a part also has to do with a lot of other work that I have had to do as well). Mind you, it isn't as if the sequal was unplanned when the first movie was released - for those who are familiar with the story would have known that the movie actually would need to take up two parts, and this is the second part is where the heroes of the first movie return as adults.
The story goes that most of them have left Derry and made their way in the world, some of them in good positions, others of them not so good. However, one of them has remained, just to keep his ear to the ground, and to see if Pennywise decides to return, as he suspects he would namely because there was a consensus that they didn't quite beat him as kids. Not surprisingly, twenty-seven years later, the reports start to emerge that Pennywise has indeed returned.
One interesting thing is that one of the guys has become a successful author (and in fact it seems that they have all gone out to become quite successful, another one of those rather annoying tropes that seems to appear throughout Hollywood films, though to be fair, the original novel also had then quite successful as well). Well, the thing is that even though he is successful he simply does not know how to write an ending. Mind you, I do sort of wonder whether it is actually possible for an author to be able to become successful it the author can't write an ending - I thought that was a necessity when it came to penning good literature.
Yet, the thing was that with the original film, we all absolutely loved it, but when the ending came along, we pretty much all rolled our eyes and cried out 'we waited four hours for THAT!'. Actually, some of King's best works are pretty awesome books, but have pretty abominable endings (such as The Stand). So, it turned out that they decided to try a make the ending of this film somewhat more engaging.
I'd have to say it did work. I did actually appreciate Pennywise's true form much, much better than the original, though it does seem to suggest that we aren't really all that sure as to what is actually his true form. Remember, Pennywise is a master of illusion, and that is the theme that is constantly running through the film. We never quite know what is real, or what is not real. Still, the thing was that this film simply did not seem to be anywhere near as thrilling as the original - Pennywise was so much scarier in that one.
Yeah, I had to admit that I really, really wasn't all that impressed. In fact it certainly did feel as if this film was a complete and utter waste of almost three hours, though I do have to admit that the ending to this one was a little better, even though we never truly found out what Pennywise was, beyond an alien that is - that was something that was pretty clear.
Oh, the other thing that really annoyed me with this film - there were so many cut scenes back to the first film. In fact the number of cut scenes really did feel as if the producers suspected that most people wouldn't remember the first film, so decided to rehash some of the scenes from that. Granted, that was the case with me, but honestly, I'm not all that sure if it was really all that necessary. In fact, it was these cut scenes that really did make me feel as if the film was overtly long, and as soon as I realised what was happening, my immediately thought was 'I've already seen this!'. Then again, I also suspect that without the cut scenes, we might not have quite realised what was going on, especially if we hadn't seen the first one for quite a while, and would have simply been confused, and scratching out head. I guess you can't have it either way.