Not even Pennywise can save this circus

Rating: 5/10 (7 September 2019)

I'll skip repeating what others here have already said about the plot being disjointed, characters cliched, dialogue awkward, tension weak, and scares predictable. Chapter One had similar issues (albeit in not so exaggerated a form that it dried up all patience and good will), but what it did have was Skarsgård and his Pennywise the Clown, who, as a debut movie monster, was surprisingly unique and mesmorizingly haunting.
Chapter Two does not have the benefit of being a debut; the audience already knows what Pennywise is about. In short, the magic is gone. IT in the first film was an out-of-this-world force of inconceivable breadth. IT in the sequel is a familiar monster up to the same old tricks (down to the very way he stalks and chomps his victims); and, in being so, loses much of his power.
"Pennywise has returned to Derry!" is supposed to be the driving vehicle of tension for the film. But it feels like Pennywise never left. He's doing exactly what he's always done, like the uncle that asks you to pull his finger every Thanksgiving. Skarsgard is a talented actor. The filmmakers had no shortage of opportunities to rekindle the magic of the once-mysterious monster, who, having been humiliated by defeat, could have returned in Chapter Two with a vengeance, more cunning, more menacing, more malevolent. Every opportunity was squandered. And so the only bouy keeping the first film afloat, is no longer there to save the second from sinking.