A painfully long, sporadically okayish Chapter Two! [+52%]

Rating: 5/10 (14 September 2019)

Short Review: With a brutal opening scene that sets the tone for ghastly events to follow, It: Chapter Two delivers more of Pennywise minus the conventional scares. To summarize, the Losers Club reunites to deal with the Pennywise problem 27 years later. What made the first part of It so frequently entertaining was the chemistry shared between the wily, high-energy kids that the Losers Club comprised.
While their older counterparts boast more screen-famous names such as James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, and more, their camaraderie lacks the spontaneous spunk of their younger versions. Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd makes a triumphant return as Pennywise the clown and leaves the most opaque mark in the two-part series. What stretches It Chapter Two is writer Gary Dauberman's and director Andy Muschietti's attempt to stay faithful to Stephen King's novel to a great extent. As such, it renders each (surviving) member of the Losers Club with an 'individual episode of horror', most of which work only in parts.
While the budget is a lot more lavish this time around (and that's reflected in the sets, costumes, and visual effects), director Muschietti replaces the more authentic, unexpected scares of the first with frequent, super-loud, in-your-face scares that you can see coming a mile away. This makes It Chapter Two more of a horror-actioner and less of an atmospheric horror-drama.
Also, the climax didn't do me any good. Compared to the elaborate episodes that each member of the Losers Club experiences, it fell extremely short of what one would imagine needs to be done to overthrow a morbid menace such as Pennywise.
It would have also made more sense to cut down on these fast-paced jumpscares to give viewers some extra context on The Ritual of ChÃ¼d and its true effects. With a run-time of close to 3 hours, you're bound to feel some butt-numbing effects instead. After a first chapter that turned out to be a pleasant surprise, I thought It Chapter Two (with raised stakes) barely managed to deliver. Yet, it just might be the true-blue summer blockbuster of 2019.