Andrew Robinson
After two years of waiting, It Chapter 2 has finally premiered for viewers across the country. In what is sure to be a box office giant – though it will likely slot in a tad below It’s record-breaking opening weekend in 2017, the lore of Pennywise the Dancing Clown comes to an end. With a 2-hr 49-minute runtime, however It Chapter 2 feels unnecessarily long at points.
Summary
27 years after thinking they had defeated Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) as children, the Losers Club must reunite after the killings start again.
Analysis
Let’s start with the good.
The acting is superb. Jessica Chastain (Bev), and Bill Hader (Richie) stand out, but the entire main cast, including James McAvoy (Bill), Isaiah Mustafa (Mike), Jay Ryan (Ben), James Ransone (Eddie), and Andy Bean (Stanley) puts forth a great performance. Furthermore, Skarsgard is once again fantastic as Pennywise, though he isn’t quite as frightening as he was in the first installment. His ability to look in two different directions simultaneously is terrifying.
Unfortunately, the actors don’t appear to have the same chemistry as their child counterparts do in It. They have their scenes and watching them catch up after much lost time is fun, but the relationships simply don’t feel as authentic as they do in the previous film. One could argue that this is because the characters haven’t seen each other for roughly 27 years, but that point is rendered moot later in the film, when they’ve had time to catch up. Derry is a magical place – it takes the Losers back to their childhood. Yet things still don’t feel authentic.
With that said, director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman do a great job at portraying the devolution of the Losers into their childhood selves when they return to Derry. This is an important distinction to make – it subtly shows what Derry does to its inhabitants, as well as showing what the Losers must become in order to stand a fighting chance against Pennywise – innocent. It Chapter Two nails this feeling.
The runtime of It Chapter Two is another issue. At nearly three hours long, the film really needed to capture some of the more important subplots of the novel. Instead, some important-yet-secondary characters are sidelined nearly entirely. Given the fact that they have so much ground to cover with the Losers – essentially seven main protagonists to follow – this undoing could be forgiven under most circumstances. A nearly-three-hour runtime does not make for one of those circumstances.
One thing It Chapter Two does have a lot of is comedy. Whether this is for the best or not (this reviewer believes the truth of the situation lies somewhere in the middle), laughs are very present. Hader, in particular, makes this possible with a fantastic portrayal of Richie. He acts just as Finn Wolfhard did in It, reverting to jokes in the most horrific of circumstances.
Sadly, the comedic aspect of the film is not limited to just Hader. Some of the scenes that are supposed to be scary come off as cheesy and, well, humorous, instead. With a character like Pennywise, this is to be expected to a point. However, Pennywise never seems to inspire that fear in his victims – or in the viewer – this time around. In this aspect, the film comes off more as a comedy horror movie that a horror film with comedy sprinkled in.
Finally, lovers of the Stephen King book that the film is based on will likely be disappointed at some of the changes made. While a lot of what occurs in the latter part of the book would be difficult to translate to the movie screen effectively due to the difficulty of grasping King’s metaphysical points, other points appear to be changed simply to change them. When adapting books to the big screen, films nearly always need to change certain things to make everything work. Oftentimes, even, endings of books don’t work as well on the screen. It Chapter Two stays fairly faithful to its source novel, but sidelines some subplots, under-develops a few characters (namely Henry Bowers), and doesn’t attempt to adapt some major points at all. For book lovers, this is disappointing.
With that said, the ending to the film provides a sense of closure that will be pleasing to viewers.
Verdict
It Chapter Two features a phenomenal cast of acting performances, but lacks in chemistry and the feeling of authenticity. The 2-hr 49-minute runtime is unnecessarily long, especially given the sidelining of multiple key subplots present in the novel. The comedy provided by Hader is excellent, but other attempts at comedy result in the film coming off as comedy horror instead of straight horror.
It Chapter Two fails to live up to its predecessor, yet provides a satisfying conclusion to the two-part movie series.
6.5/10
