Disappointing

Rating: 2/10 (13 September 2019)

Chapter 1 got almost everything right. Great cast chemistry, excellent character development, tense scenes, build up of suspense, and only a few jump scare moments.
In contrast Chapter 2 was well acted, but the chemistry was off, we got very little insight into who these characters are as adults, the scenes were less tense and more dull, the suspense was lacking and the movie as a whole relied too heavily of jump scares than actually building any real suspense. Quite frankly, it was poorly written and directed, and that includes the fearful monster of Pennywise - who spent more time as some deranged CGI character than Bill Skarsgard's excellent portrayal from Chapter 1.
IT - the book - has over 1000 pages, and yet I found myself questioning the direction that the production took. Sure, changes have to be made to made scenes work for the screen, but Chapter 1 did it masterfully, Chapter 2 left a lot to be desired. Leaving out whole, and important, sections of the book and adding new scenes whose only purpose seemed to be the unfortunate victims of the horror trope jump scares. It's been done to death, sure people jump, then the scene goes back to being some strange CGI concoction that's more gore and gross than scary, leaving the actors to carry the whole plot.
Hey! Hollywood! Well written suspense and thrill can be just as scary as jumps and gore.
It's such a disappointment when Chapter 1 was so good; and it set some very high expectations that Chapter 2 failed to meet.
The running time is almost three hours, and I think I was bored for all but 25 minutes of it.