Re: IT: Chapter 2 (September 6th, 2019)
I just saw the film.
The Good
The adult cast was good for the most part. No one was bad, but the adult fat kid was forgettable and Jessica Chastain doesn't look or act like the younger version. Bill Hader as Ritchie was good and so was James Ransone as Eddie. He was actually perfect. Adult evil mullet kid was also good. Bill Skarsg?rd is the heart (
) of the film and franchise.
Speaking of which, Pennywise is the best part of the film when he's on screen as the clown. He looks and sounds awesome. He seemed to have become a bit more proficient at killing little kids by coming across as sympathetic and friendly. The special effects were pretty good, and Pennywise's final form is a major improvement over the 1990 version. It was smart to leave him as a clown while retaining the spider motif. I like how the clown and spider shapes were almost like a puppet that the lights...or that big v a g i n a looking thing was using as a weapon.
The ending was satisfying, which is funny because there was running joke in the film about bad endings, so that worked out pretty well. The mullet kid's friend driving the car was also cool, but I wish they had done more with those two characters. Other than Penny, every time they would show up, things got interesting and gave the movie a shot of adrenaline.
I didn't mind the flashbacks, some weren't needed. I didn't mind the 3 hour running time despite not having the villains in it as much as I would've liked.
The Bad
The Brokeback Mountain opening with the same sex couple. Completely pointless, other than I guess showing that Pennywise doesn't discriminate and he's "progressive."
The black guy was kind of given the Winston role, except he was overacting a bit. Also, how the hell did he find all those phone numbers? He had not seen these guys in 27 years, and he's got their cellphone numbers. Some of those guys were even famous.
I could buy if he found them using social media or something, but he was calling them at home and at work like he never lost contact. They didn't even remember his ass. That was dumb.
The lack of Pennywise was noticeable, but even more obvious by the fact that he didn't have any truly memorable or iconic moments like in the firt film. His final form might be the most memorable thing. I can see Neca toys and Funko making that toy when it's no longer consider a spoiler. In addition, they cut some Pennywise scenes that were in the trailer like the one where he's on the side of a building. Hopefully they include those in the DVD. His body count was once again small for an iconic movie horror villain.
Most of the adult cast isn't that interesting. They're not bad, but the film slows down a bit much when it focuses on Bill, Beverly and Ben. The love triangle just doesn't work. The end result was fine, but overall I was not invested in any of them getting together.
What was Ritchie's "big" secret? Pennywise said he knew his secret. Was Ritchie gay too? That scene happened right after he was called gay by mullet kid, so that was confusing.
Overall
Not a good film. Not a bad film. The first chapter was better, so less is better I guess. Like others have said, it didn't need to be 3 hours, and focusing on each character and giving them each a flashback scene probably made the film longer than it needed to be, especially when only two of the adults were the stand out, and it wasn't Bill and Beverly. For a horror film, it's not bad when compared to most mediocre 80's and 90's horror movies or those Blumhouse movies. I like it enough to watch it from time to time when the film is on tv. It's a good background film to play because it's so long and you can always leave it on until the cool scenes come on. It's much better than the 1990 movie. I can't recommend the film to anyone, unless they really like the first film or love Pennywise.