A LOT of effort but the parts don't add up to a whole

Rating: 5/10 (16 April 2020)

I finally saw this movie after being sorry I missed it in the theaters last summer.
Well, I have to say the wait was worth it! I only paid $5.99 to see it on Google Play rather than a full movie theater ticket of $12.00!
The movie is full of special effects and gore - occasionally I got a good scare but more than anything else this film tired me out! After about an hour I was caught up more with all the composting of film, the trick shots, the editing, the set design, etc because all I could think of was "How did they come with that idea and how many people and hours did that shot require???" Shot after shot, sequence after sequence.
The main problem - without giving anything away - is that this "It" alien can distort time and space by affecting people's minds. So all kinds of things happen but then - guess what - they really didn't happen. Or maybe a few really did? After awhile I just gave up and chalked it up to the alien, then ultimately just chalked it up to the director and writer.
The secondary problem is that King's work usually entails personal dramas, histories and relationships between many of the characters. That may work well on the page but for a real killer-diller monster movie it just bogs everything down. In this film particularly - I guess because the producer and director wanted to be really faithful to the book - it's just one personal conflict after another. The "It" monster uses these personal facts to create horrors specific to the characters - but, again, in order for those moments of horror to happen, we have to sit through memories and recountings and confessions ad nauseum.
Every monster movie has a final confrontation with the rampaging beast and this movie is no exception. Unfortunately, in this movie, given all I've said, it's just more of the same only on a bigger scale.