RATING: D+
- RATED R for Disturbing violent content, bloody images, language and crude sexual material
- RELEASED: September 6, 2019
- RUNTIME: 170 minutes
- WRITTEN BY: Gary Dauberman
- DIRECTED BY: Andres Muschietti
- STARRING: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Jay Ryna, James Ransome, Isiah Mustafa, Bill Skarsgard, Andy Bean
‘It: Chapter Two’ is the sequel to the 2017 hit horror film, ‘It’, based on Stephen King’s beloved 1000+ page novel. This film is the second half of the book, picking up 27 years after the Losers Club defeated the evil clown, Pennywise, in 1989. Our favorite teenagers are now grown up and seem to have blocked out their traumatic childhood experiences from their minds until Pennywise resurfaces and the now-adult Losers Club must return to Derry, Maine to defeat the sadistic dancing clown once and for all. For someone who didn’t quite catch on to the ‘It’ craze in 2017 (as I found it mostly flat and unscary), I wasn’t really expecting much from this film; I also wasn’t expecting to see one of the worst films of the year. ‘It: Chapter Two’ takes everything that weakened the first film and dials them up to about a million. First of all, just like its predecessor, it is not one bit scary. The film is so flatly directed that even with a murderous clown eating children, it manages to deliver more laughs than creeps. There is a scene in which Pennywise shapeshifts into an elderly woman who then turns into a giant creature; this scene could have been terrifying, but the whole entire theater erupted with laughter. And, the film’s painful repetition certainly doesn’t help. The entire second act shows each member of the Losers Club revisiting their most memorable childhood place (good or bad) in Derry, and almost every one of these visits ends with a grotesque computer-generated monster popping out of nowhere and you begin to feel as if you’re trapped in a time loop. Those involved must not have gotten the memo. It’s 2019, and jump scares are not effective anymore. When loud sound screeches through the theater is it startling? Of course, but it is not truly frightening; it is not something that will haunt you when you leave the theater. There is no sense of atmosphere and tension. Moreover, it is also terribly predictable where you can tell when something is going to pop out at you. Additionally, the visual effects are absolutely abysmal. There is an over-reliance on CGI whereby it looks so fake that the film loses a sense of authenticity. With no exaggeration, it looks as if I made these visual effects on an iPhone App. Running at 170 minutes, this film is excruciatingly and unnecessarily long. Of course, if it was 170 minutes of a well-made film with scenes that mattered to the story, then the runtime would be justified. The repetitive nature of the film, filled with flashbacks to when the Losers Club were kids simply doesn’t advance the story at all. Also, the big climax goes on for what feels like an eternity.
The only redeeming qualities are the performances and characters. The casting is spot-on with great performances from Bill Hader, and Jay Ryan who is a revelation. And, just as in the first film, the characters are very likable. They are funny and entertaining, but they also have depth.
Each member of the Club experienced traumatic childhoods and they are trying to reconcile that in their adult lives. It is certainly compelling, even if it’s not well explored.
Good characters and likable performances can’t save a painfully boring, overlong, repetitive, unscary and poorly directed ‘It: Chapter Two’, which is now, unfortunately, one of the worst films of the year.