Second Time The First Part Was Better Than The Second Part

Rating: 5/10 (25 November 2019)

They say that most people learn from their mistakes. Maybe that's true, I don't know. However, what is less true I believe, is someone learning from someone else's mistakes. No one wants to think that they're susceptible to the same potential problems as someone else. And I think that's one of the issues when it comes to It Chapter Two. Andy Muschietti (director) and Gary Dauberman (writer) had the example of It (1990), the television miniseries that was very popular, to learn from. The main problem the miniseries had was that when the makers decided to split the film into two distinct parts (instead of interweaving the kids' story with the adults' story like the book), the first part was largely considered better than the the second part. In other words, the kids' part of the story (as well as the child actors' performances) were better and more interesting than the part of the story with the adults. Well guess what? Muschietti and Dauberman, knowing this, decided to go the same route, and split the part of the story with the children up from the part of the story with the adults. And the results were pretty much the same. Most people consider It (2017) to be much better than It Chapter Two (2019). Including me. IC2 is a number of things. Unfortunately none of them are positive. It is too long. It is too convoluted. And, quite simply, it is no where near as good as the first chapter. I had a feeling that this was going to be the case. Even when one of the story lines for a certain adult gets shortened before the rest of the adults get together, it's not enough to lighten the load with too many characters. And the problem is, the makers of the film obviously felt as if each character had to have equal screen time with equal scary events happening to each one. And going through those stories one by one, in that manner, takes away any kind of surprise that may have otherwise existed. And when there aren't any real surprises in a movie that's supposed to be scary...well let's just say that tends to neutralize the frightening parts of the film. In other words, it's poison. How disappointing. Perhaps, if anyone ever decides to adapt this story again into a film (honestly I, and a host of others really hope that never happens) they will try and tell the two parts of the story the same way Stephen King tells the story in the novel...simultaneously.