Key flaw to what could have been much better

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2019)

I didn't hate this movie, and even kind of liked it. Side Note: I had never read the book but I can tell you the opening scene was based on a true incident that happened in Bangor Maine where Stephen King lives and where I grew up. I remember it quite well when it happened.
The key flaw to this movie is it relies too heavily on the audience transferring their understanding of the bond built in the first movie to the people playing the adult version of the kids in this movie. In most sequels your okay that they spend less time bond building because those relationships were already established in the prior flick. But these are adult actors who look only mildly like their child counterparts, and you don't really feel the connection that the movie presumes you do. To even further illustrate my point, a lot of the background to the relationships in this story is told in flashbacks to the kids.
So the actors are together for a scene in the first of the movie, and the only time they are all back together again is during the final battle. It just dulls your investment in the characters and thus the overall movie entirely.