Not the sequel I was expecting or wanted

Rating: 6/10 (7 September 2019)

I liked the first one. Although they were aspects to enjoy here, this wasn't the part two that I wanted.
The film keeps up with the first by having some very good scares and just being visually creative in general. This movie includes a couple of very inspired transition shots near the beginning.
The cast playing the adult members of the Loser's Club all do a good job. I know it's been said to death but SNL & Barry's Bill Hader is the best of them. However, credit should also be given to Insidious' James Ransone. This movie is definitely funnier than it's predecessor and Ransone does a great double act with Hader. They have great chemistry. Of course, Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd still steels the show. His Pennywise continues to be unsettlingly childish and inhuman.
The main problem of this movie is that it relies waaaay too much on flashbacks. A lot of people liked the kid actors in the last film. Given that the adult character portion of the book and the mini-series is generally considered weaker, I'm guessing that the creators got worried about focusing just on the grown ups. So, a good portion of the second act relies on flashbacks to never-before-seen scenes of the kids. I mean there is a lot of this. Except for Hader's RItchie, who never really got a personal journey last time, we're not getting anything new. (Plus, I really didn't need to see anymore of Beverley's creepy father.) The setup for the flashbacks results in way too much of the characters just wandering about without much development. The sequel is way too nostalgic for the first, even the adult segments do too much recycling of previous stuff. I didn't want any of this. When I learned that the adaptation was being split into two movies for each of the age groups, I was prepared and content to watch just the adults, and I didn't get that. There needed to be way more time to focus on the lives of the current characters. (Again the character of Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa from the Old Spice commercials) doesn't get a lot of screentime.) BIll's wife and Beverly's husband basically have cameos here. Both actually had roles to play in the book. I would have preferred they cut the flashbacks and focused more on those characters.
The movie includes the last one's flaw of going way too-over-the-top with the real world threats. They are fairly cringey. In the past I could rationalize that the human characters are so evil and/or one-dimensional because everyone in Derry is affected by Pennywise's evil. However, here we see someone from outside the town also acting that way. So, now I'm just thinking it's just a lack of subtlety on the creator's case.
There was a point where I was considering giving this a ranking one notch higher, because I did like the good stuff. But in the end, I realized that I remembered the parts that bugged me far more. Be forewarned that this is one of those movies where personal enjoyment will really differ.