It Chapter Two Review
- G
- Sep 7, 2019
- 3 min read
This is the bookend to the Losers Club outing, but does bigger always mean better?
Story- so the Losers Club comes back to play with It once more, this time to settle the score for good. After a call from Mike, the crew, each living their own respective lives having forgotten (Aka repressed their memories) of their fateful summer 27 years ago, they need to come back due to the promise they made. The main thing everyone mentions about this movie is the runtime. I had my reservations as well initially, but I can honestly say I didnt feel the need to really check my watch pretty much at all the entire movie, which is a pretty great compliment in my opinion with a long movie like this. One thing I will say, I dont think it had quite the scares if the first. With that being said though, I'm not afraid to admit that I did have a hard time going to bed thursday night when I saw it, primarily because of the scene they showed in the teaser, basically the only trailer I watched. I cant tell if they were going for laughs or scares because people in the theater laughed, but I found it very scary. I think it was a good bridging of the gap between the two, technically one, timeline. It was also extremely funny which is always a cool balance act to have with a horror movie.
Cinematography/Props/Editing- I'm gonna start with the negatives first. I understand the need for it, but man the cg was superrrrrr utilized and although some was good, it was not exactly subtle. Apparently they deaged the kids with cg to make them appear as though they hadn't aged, but I didnt notice it. What I did notice was that some of the younger character's lines sounded almost sped up. I thought it was just me but Chris Stuckmann and Jeremy Jahns both commented on it, and it took me out of TBD movie a little. There were many uses of the same kid to adult transition, and at first I wasn't a fan because it didn't feel seamless, but I feel it was used for the cohesion of the story. Now on with the good. They reused props and set pieces from the original and continuity wise it was pleasing to see done right. It also was of course very competently shot, with some really pretty scenes in particular.
Acting- I'm gonna start with the rest of the cast I didnt tag because I feel bad I didnt mention them all- Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, and Andy Bean all did great. All of the kids from the Loser's Club in the first movie got to pick their counterpart for this movie and they all chose fantastically. Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy were great as usual, but the standouts to me were Bill Hader (as everyone says), James Ransone, and Bill Skarsgard. I really loved the dynamic between Eddie and Richie, and of course Pennywise was portrayed chillingly again.
Directing- Andy Muschieti stepped up to the big boy diamond this time around, going for a massive epic of a movie. It definitely seems that there were things cut out because the movie was already very long, so it'll be interesting to see if this one receives the director cut treatment that the first one was alleged to get, and that people were disappointed they didn't get. This dude definitely doesn't shy away from showing brutality, and the opening scene in this sequel proves that. If you thought the first was hard to stomach, get a load of this one. I genuinely felt sick to my stomach for a bit even after the scene ended because it was really effective. Like several things in these movies they have a larger impact in the book but its hard to fit that much into two movies so I get it. Overall, he gets some props for this movie.
Soundtrack/Audio- the soundtrack seemed to revisit some audio and music cues from the first chapter, which is not a bad thing because they were effective. The soundtrack was orchestrated well and I feel they definitely went for a grand spectacle as they did with the action in the movie.
Final Verdict- B+. The reason I wasn't able to post this the night I saw it is because I needed time to think about how I would rate it. I think that this is a fair score, and one I could definitely see myself enjoying again.
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