Review: It Chapter Two
It Chapter Two, directed by Andy Muschietti, tells the tale of a little town in Maine called Derry. Twenty-seven years ago, a group of kids took on an EVIL shape-shifting clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) and ended its killing spree. But now Pennywise is back and stronger than ever, now even more hellbent on eating and killing more kids and adults too. When people start disappearing again it’s up to the now grown up Losers Club to return back to Derry to stop the clown’s reign of terror once and for all.
This film is based on the second half of Stephen King’s ginormous 1100 page novel. The first film from 2017 was not only faithful to the novel but was also a pretty solid horror film filled with great performances and a couple decent scares. However, the first film was based on the first half of the novel which was easily the better half if you read it. The second half is known to be the weakest part of the story, and unfortunately this film was pretty dang faithful in adapting that lesser half. Even if you haven’t read the novel, many will find Chapter Two to be incredibly underwhelming with its monstrous run time, unbearable pacing, and an incredibly disappointing ending.
The film’s biggest problem lies within its story and pacing. For most of its two hour and fifty minute run time the film spends a lot of time on scenes, flashbacks, and subplots that could’ve been cut out altogether. Each scene follows a very familiar pattern: One of the characters visit an old location from their childhood, they get a sometimes spooky flashback of said location, Pennywise torments and reminds character of said flashback, Pennywise leaves, and character leaves with an object that’s needed for the film’s climax. Rinse and repeat. These turn of events make up most of the film’s run time, making the story feel incredibly dragged out and redundant.
Much like the first film, the editing is also incredibly random at points. This film seems to be confused with whether it wants to be a legit horror film or just a parody of itself, as there are music choices and weird cuts that feels very out of place. The ending to this movie also really sucked. I won’t go into spoilers but the film’s climax gets incredibly corny and dumb that even for people who haven’t read the novel will find it incredibly anti-climactic as a whole.
Some things that this film does have going for it though is largely the performances. The main cast all do a fine job in the film, with Bill Hader and Bill Skarsgård being one of the highlights in particular. The overall film-making is still done well when compared to other horror films to come out lately. Some of the scares are still effective and when the film’s tone randomly transitions into comedy at least the comedy is done pretty well.
Overall while this is far from a terrible film, it’s not a very memorable one either. This is just something to be expected when you adapt the weakest part of an otherwise acclaimed story. You can try to deploy all the stops and tricks you know with film, but when your source material is inherently flawed to begin with, there’s only so much you can do. If you really enjoyed the novel for what it was and thoroughly enjoyed the first film then maybe you’ll like this film as well. Check it out if you want, but for me personally this film just didn’t work.
Final Verdict: 4/10