IT: Chapter 2-Just Clowning Around

                  Photo Credit: The Wrap

Well guys, it's been 2 years since the last time we visited the town of Derry, Maine and had to fight a sewer clown, but we're back! Was it worth the wait?

I've been a big Stephen King fan since I started college but since I'm equal parts lazy and a coward, I kept putting IT the novel off. Fortunately, I read the book a few years ago and even though I thought that it's way too long and the ending goes off the rails, I really enjoyed the 100 lb. novel and was ecstatic when they announced the new movies being based off of it.

I loved IT: Chapter One when it came out two years ago and was thrilled when it turned out to be a huge success, but the question in the back of my mind was, "How do you make the second part of this story work?"

If you're not familiar with the book, from chapter to chapter, the timeline switches back and forth between the main characters as children and as adults. It works well in the novel, showing how much of an influence the past has on the adult versions of its characters and leads to the climaxes of both timelines at once. For me, the chapters with the kids were always the better parts of the book. The kids always felt more vulnerable, every discovery was fresh and exciting, the scares hit harder, and the story always felt simpler. There's an evil demon clown and we have to stop it. But once you switched to the adults, it was never as interesting.

IT was never as threatening and the adult versions just seemed to be retracing the steps of their younger selves. But the climax of both timelines was what drop the book a grade for me. Mr. King, everyone's favorite cocaine-fueled author, decided not to not just stop at Pennywise being a demon clown, oh no, boys and girls, Pennywise is actually an alien from another dimension that crash landed on earth, millions of years ago. His nemesis is an ancient, all-knowing sea turtle. And the only way to stop him is to perform an ancient ritual (with the turtle's help of course!). There's also a sex scene at the end involving all the kids....is everybody having fun yet?

So, knowing all of that, and luckily avoiding the unspeakable scene with the kids the first go round, I waited to see how they would tackle allllll of that. To my surprise, and relief, they managed to (mostly) find a way around all the craziness of the ending, while still staying faithful to the book throughout the runtime.


           Photo Credit: Consequence of Sound

First off, the good stuff. This is a great cast. I know every review has pointed this out but it's true. We lucked out in Chapter One with some amazing child actors, and now with James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader leading the cast, while being able to base their performance of their "younger selves," they're able to give performances that all but carry the movie. Bill Skarsgard also returns to play Pennywise and is just as magnetic and terrifying as he was the last time. The movie also follows Chapter One's lead of mixing funny and scary moments throughout. Although Chapter Two seems like it tries too hard in some scenes to force the humor, this a tough thing to do while still maintaining a creepy tone and they do a good job pulling it off. And speaking of the scares, while the abundance of jump scares might wear on you over the 3 hour run time, they manage to make the scenes fun and creative with some genuinely off putting monster designs. The best parts, though, are the way too few and far between scenes of Pennywise (in clown form) just doing his thing and terrifying his victims. He's so creepy and brings an energy to his scenes that the other of his monster forms seem to lack.

For the final good point, my wish was granted and they changed the ending. Don't get me wrong, it's still a bizarre finale, but they made a much simpler way for our characters to fight Pennywise, while still giving enough credit to fans of the book. Thank you, thank you, thank you, the other way would have made people either laugh or walk out of the theater.

Now, the bad stuff. The main criticism off this movie is it's run time, and they're right, it does feel long in stretches when a scene seems to drag too long (the scene in the Chinese restaurant stands out) but for the most part, I was mostly so into the movie that I didn't notice too often. But my main problem with this is the inclusion of the kid actors from last time. I'm happy to see them again but their scenes could have easily been cut to help the running time. Their part of the story had been wrapped up so perfectly in Chapter One that them being in Chapter Two feels weird. Not to mention, most of these kids were on the verge of puberty in the last one and time doesn't stand still - even for movie stars. These kids grew up in the past two years, and unfortunately the creatives tried to use special effects to make them look and sound younger. IT IS OFF PUTTING. They look so strange in some scenes that it's distracting. I wish movies would stop doing this but that's a rant for another day.

My other problem is something I mentioned earlier. While the scares are fun for the most part, you start noticing the pattern to them early on:

Step 1. The character realizes something creepy is about to happen.
Step 2. AWWW SCARY MONSTER!!!!
Step 3. Run from scary monster.
Step 4. Hide and think they're safe.
Step 5. Uh oh, the monster's behind you!

Most scenes follow this pattern and it starts to wear on you.

But for the most part, I really enjoyed this movie. It may not be as good as Chapter One, but just the fact that they managed to make this gigantic book, with some truly bizarre ideas, into comprehensible movies that a mass audience can enjoy is something that isn't being praised enough. So if you enjoy horror movies, definitely check it out and hopefully we'll be getting some more great, big budget horror movies in the future.

Rating: 7/10