Skarsgård's Pennywise is a mastered artist of sadism.

Rating: 7/10 (14 September 2019)

I want to start this off by giving praise where praise is due. Rich Delia, the casting director, earned his paycheck. The cast that was assembled for this lil ol' picture show here was superbly done. The chemistry amongst The Losers Club as adults was just as fantastic, as genuine, as it was when they were depicted as children. Each character reintroduced as an adult was easily identifiable and instantly familiar despite how much growth had happen within' the past 27 years. Speaking of chemistry, Bill Hader as grown Richie and James Ransone as grown Eddie can be simply described perfection. Everytime these two were on screen and interacting everyone in the theater, myself included, was having a blast.
Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise was just as wonderfully deranged and vile as one could hope for. It irks me to no bounds that after getting home, and even now I still see a bunch of ''he's no Tim Curry'' posts/rants. They're right. He's no Tim Curry, and Curry is no Skarsgård. Both performances were amazing and I see little merit in comparing them. Skarsgård, I feel, excelled in bringing to light just how ruthless Pennywise is. Skarsgård's representation of Pennywise shows us that he's mastered what seems to be an artform of sadism by vehemently using other's weaknesses against them. Regardless if you're a child, or a determined adult come back to 'play' again, anyone sound of mind would follow the steps of Stanley than try to face Pennywise.
Outside of the casting, the film was visually beautiful. Derry was bleak yet bright, dreadful yet seemingly peaceful (as long as you weren't a loser), and so on. You could imagine sitting in the second row of the theater, I got a whole lotta screen to look at. As I bent my neck in ways it never bent before trying to take the entire picture in, never once was it not worth it. Even afterwards, while rubbing the newfound kinks out I'd rightfully earned, I was still thinking of the cruddy looking theater with 'A Nightmare On Elm Street 5' displayed for presentation, or of the run down arcade where Richie visited to find his token. I wasn't physically at these places, but the way everything was displayed felt so memorable.... if that makes any sense at all.
I can go on and on about all the things I enjoyed about this film, but this post would get way too long and ruin the movie for who read this before watching it. Instead, let's get into what I disliked.
The overabundance of unneeded comedic relief. I'm all for comedic relief in horror films, but not when it's every other dang line, my dudes. For example: Richie gets barfed on at one point in the film. We're not talking "need to change your shirt" kind of barfed on, but barfed on so hardcore he has barf in places he didn't know he had places that requires a full body, deep tissue, down to the essence of his being sort of scrubbing. While that happened, Angel of the Morning begins playing. It felt excruciatingly out of place to me. It felt as though the humor of the song was supposed make this less disgusting by fault of humor? No thanks. This type of relief continuously happened to the point where things that were supposed to actually jilt the audience didn't do it at all; instead laughter ensued.
A complaint I'm a little on the back and forth with myself about is there wasn't any warning beforehand about long intervals of flashing. I mean, yeah, as an epileptic you kinda take that risk when going to the movies, but at the same time when it's as prolonged as it was in some parts of the film you'd imagine there being some decency on behalf of the theater or production company saying "Heads up, epileptics. This one's gonna hurt."
The rest of my disappointments are minor. We didn't get to see too much of Audra nor Bowers. While the ending was understandably not similar to the book, what the hell was that "you're a clown!" garbage? If you're going to do CGI, make it look GOOD. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Beyond all that (would be, could be) nitpicking, I did enjoy the film. Everything from the nod to The Thing to Stephen King's cameo was delightful. I'm patiently looking forward to the bluray release so I can watch part one and two back to back.