What the hell happened here? I quite enjoyed Chapter 1 as it didn't hold back on moments of gore and, for the most part, showed Pennywise as a predator that used their own fears against the kids. It looked good enough and didn't go crazy with the visual effects.

Chapter 2 is completely different tonally and the difference between the 2 chapters is jarring. Where Chapter 1 had moments of tension, every moment of tension in Chapter 2 is undermined immediately by stupid jokes that take you out of the scene right away. Seriously, every time something "scary" happens, one of the characters says something to completely destroy any believability or sense of immersion. Example: [spoiler]After Eddie gets stabbed in the face by an insane Henry Bowers, pulls the knife out of his own face and stabs Henry in the chest, before leaving the bathroom he makes a remark about his mullet. So getting stabbed in the face apparently isn't a big deal..?[/spoiler]
The Richie and Eddie characters are the biggest offenders and halfway during the movie become absolutely obnoxious.

The CG in this movie is such a mixed bag. The effects applied to Pennywise are okay for the most part but there are a couple of scenes [spoiler]The old lady that attacks Beverly at her old home, the monster that attacks Eddie at the pharmacy, Pennywise in the entire end sequence[/spoiler] that look absolutely horrible. For some reason Hollywood has a tradition of making the CGI worse as the budget for the movie goes up and this is definitely one of them. The budget was more than twice as much as the first movie ($35m to $79m) so I guess the more famous names in this 2nd chapter got paid very well.

They could have had a really nice remake on their hands with these two movies but Chapter 2 simply falls short.

[4.2/10] As scores of painful voiceovers will let you know in no uncertain terms (let alone subtle ones), *IT Chapter Two* is a movie centered around the idea that you cannot run away from trauma. You have to confront it, process it, and accept it in order to move past it, even if it means facing down things you would rather just run away from.

My only hope is that this moral exclusively applies to emotional trauma and not the lingering distaste for a bad movie, because I never want to have to watch *IT Chapter Two* again.

Rarely has a sequel fallen so far from the heights of its predecessor in such a comically bad way. The 2017 *IT* adaptation had its imperfections, but it was a scary, relatable, and ultimately heartening tale of overcoming fear and abuse wrapped up in a gripping horror passage. This film, by contrast, is a tonally mishmashed, overly long car crash of a feature, rife with baffling missteps at almost every turn that make you wonder if the filmmakers even saw the first movie.

That starts with the shift in tone. The previous “chapter” of *IT* had its funny moments, particularly when the horror was compartmentalized in favor of some preteen hangouts, but you’d never call it a comedy.. *IT Chapter Two*, on the other hand, would be best termed an attempt at a horror comedy. It’s chock full of explicit gag material and even winking bits that feel more of a piece with Whedonalia like *Cabin in the Woods* than the first movie.

I can understand the impulse. When you have a comic pro like Bill Hader, who is the one shining light (if you’ll pardon the expression) in this film, I get wanting to take advantage of him. But *It Chapter Two* never fully settles on that tone, instead going for a strange amalgamation of a tongue-in-cheek, horror-infused laugher with a deadly serious, mythos-heavy tear-jerker. The two halves of the film’s personality don’t fit together at all, and worse yet, the levity tends to be packed into more scare-heavy sequences, undermining their ability to frighten the audience or convince it to take the horror seriously.

But maybe that’s no great loss given the meh level of scary sequences we get in this film. Even if you weren’t into the kid friendship bits or overcoming fear themes of the first *IT* movie, it could boast a nonstop array of skin-crawling scares. Its sequel, on the other hand, can only offer a host of less-convincing CGI creations and concocts a heap of scenarios that either feel like pale rehashes of routines the last movie already did, or original but less availing new efforts that fail to impress. Really, only Stan’s severed head and its insectoid evolution shows the fearsome creativity of the first flick, so perhaps we didn’t lose much despite the addition of tonally odd gags throughout.

Many of those horror sequences come in the form of flashbacks, whether it’s Eddie seeing the leper go after his mom, Bill nearly being pulled into the storm drain, or Ben being chased through the halls of the school by Pennywise. These scenes are tedious and unnecessary, and not just because the scares are less potent. This film is riddled with retcons that hurt, rather than help it as a sequel.

One of the smartest choices the prior film made was to focus on the kids’ story rather than jumping back and forth between past and present like the book and T.V. miniseries did. It added a certain clarity and propulsiveness to that “chapter” of the tale. Here, on the other hand, the movie doesn’t just mess up its pacing and structure with those constant leaps across the years, but it retroactively weakens the last film by packing in a bunch of useless scenes in the timeline that jumble the characters’ arcs from when they were kids.

The best thing you can say about *It Chapter Two* is that it picks up some of those stories and themes from when these characters were children and tries to advance them in interesting ways. The worst you can say is that it botches the exchange between past and present almost every time.

Bill’s arc in the first movie was accepting his little brother’s death and not trying to revive him. *Chapter Two* takes that a step further, with Bill grappling with his guilt over not being there for his little brother when he was abducted and beating himself up for faking sick to avoid playing with his younger sibling. There’s a strong concept there, but the movie chooses to dramatize it by Bill...having trouble writing good (read: happy) endings as a novelist and screenwriter? It’s a pretty meager realization of that theme.

Likewise, Beverly has one of the clearest instances of the movie’s “Ignoring past trauma just leads to repeating it” ethos as her abusive father has been replaced with an abusive husband. But the film’s solution to that is just her realizing that Ben always loved her and the two getting together after being reacquainted for maybe a few days? Odder still, the film hinges Ben’s arc on his fear that he’ll forever be unwanted and die alone, which was vaguely in the background of his phobias and journey of the first one, but never really at the forefront, forcing awkward retcons to try to make that the issue in his young life after the fact.

The same is true, only worse, for Richie. *Chapter Two* suggests that Richie’s raunchy talk was just a means of sublimating his attraction to Eddie, and centers his story on Pennywise trying to exploit his fears of being found out. That is, again, a really strong concept, but one that has very little force given how many retcons and clunky flashbacks this film has to use considering there was basically no setup for that in the first one. Instead, it has to try to forge a deep romantic connection out of whole cloth in between wacky pomeranian jokes.

But hey, it could be worse. You could be Mike, who doesn’t even really get an arc despite being the instigator of this half of the story. (Charitably, you could say these events are Mike fully embracing the “You can take control and execute sheep or be one of them” message his grandfather gave him, but it’s undercooked here.) Similarly, Eddie’s journey here, to the extent he has one, is a rehash of the one he took in the first chapter, requiring an equally clumsy retcon to establish. And Stan dies for the thinnest of reasons, with an equal and opposite lionization that doesn’t track with the person we saw previously. Virtually none of the characters are well-served here, which hobbles the movie as much as the substandard scares.

Beyond those broad, overarching issues with the films, it also makes some smaller but still head scratch-worthy choices. One of the most frightening things about Pennywise previously is that he’s this unknown and almost unknowable force, whose history is hinted at through Ben’s research but who gains force as an antagonist by being something whose impetus and limitations aren’t really known. Here, for some reason, we get an origin story and mythos for him that’s not only superfluous, but which helps to neuter one of the decade’s most terrifying villains by stuffing him into the realm of the known and understood.

On top of that baffling decision, with Pennywise in play, why does this film need the last film’s bully breaking out a mental hospital and chasing around our heroes with the help of his zombie chauffeur? Why does it send the Losers Club on what amounts to a hunt for Pennywise’s horcruxes to fill time? Why did this already overextended disappointment need to last nearly three hours?

That may be the most excruciating thing about *It Chapter Two* -- by the time you get to the third act and the final confrontation with Pennywise, you start to feel like it’s just never going to wrap this thing up. There are *so many endings* to this movie. You have the ancient indigienous people’s ritual. You have the individual fear-facing. You have the *actual* defeat of Pennywise. You have the escape from the cave. You have the recreation of a bit from childhood. You have the friendly phone call among friends. You have the bog standard voice over montage from the fallen friend while we see scenes of everyone’s *individual* happy ending. You have the jump back to the crew as kids. It just keeps going and going, and it is *exhausting*.

Worst still, it’s a cliché festival. Everything the film does in that final forty-five minutes or so is saccharine and trite, lacking in any real insight or complexity. What finally kills Pennywise is just a combination of believing in yourself and turning the tables on the people who’d make you feel small. Every happy ending is predictable and every beat to get there, from hook-ups to scars disappearing to reflections of younger selves is cheesy and unsatisfying as hell. Extended finishes aren’t the worst thing in the world if a movie can earn the tension and emotion necessary to sustain them, but *Chapter Two* comes up woefully short.

Some of these problems stem from the source material, but that’s a weak excuse. This is an adaptation, free to make its own choices and hone the original tale to fit the story *these filmmakers* wanted to tell. Maybe that would cost them an overly cutesy Stephen King cameo (see also: the “Heeeeere’s Johnny” bit), but it would have resulted in a better movie. Streamlining the weaker elements, and taking more time to build on the first “chapter” rather than revise it on the fly, could have resulted in a worthy follow-up. Instead, we got this dud, with the only fear it can generate being the concern that you’ve wasted three hours of your life on a film that wasn’t remotely worth it.

There are, nevertheless, some good ideas and a noble goal at the heart of *IT Chapter Two*. Our collection of heroes leaving Derry to forget but having to return, remember, and confront childhood hardships works as a metaphor for trying to leave childhood trauma behind when the best course is to deal with it and hopefully transcend it. In its best moments, this film grazes that ideal and generates a few compelling scenes. But its worst moments far outnumber those scattered gems, and result in a movie that should be left in the sewers of Derry, with as much distance put between it and audiences, in the hopes that we can all just forget it, at least for a good twenty-seven years or so.

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So, Chapter Two is a sequel to It (2017), and my expectations were a bit high. I really enjoyed the latter to the point of considering it one of the year’s best, as well as one of the best Stephen King cinematic adaptations. Andy Muschietti returning to the director’s chair and having such a fantastic cast portraying the adult versions of the Losers (not only in terms of quality acting but also regarding how well the adults look like the older versions of the young actors) are two of the main reasons why I was genuinely excited. Also, the runtime (longest horror movie ever?!) definitely left me wondering how a horror flick could have the same duration of some of the most epic films in cinema…

Well, I got to be honest: I’m disappointed. It’s not a bad movie, at all, but it doesn’t even come close to its predecessor’s heels. I disagree with some headlines I’ve read though. Some say the comedy was misplaced, taking away impact from emotional or dark moments. There’s barely a moment where it was expected seriousness and laughter kicked in instead, but when it does occur, it actually works. I just think it wasn’t as funny as the previous film, overall. Granted, Bill Hader as Richie Tozier is hilarious, and a perfect cast as an adult Finn Wolfhard. His chemistry with James Ransone (Eddie Kaspbrak) resembles the one Wolfhard, and Jack Dylan Grazer had, therefore this/these duo(s) being the comedy highlight.

Some say the movie is too long. Now, this is a tricky one. Usually, when people feel bored or not as entertained as they wanted to be, they tend to blame it on the film’s runtime, especially if it’s over 100 minutes. I agree that the movie FEELS long, but I disagree that the runtime is too long. There’s more than enough story to explore, and literally, every single character from the Losers Club has an interesting arc. The problem here is that not all of them are explored in a way that’s funny, scary, or just captivating enough. The fact that Jessica Chastain’s (Beverly Marsh) sequence with the old lady is entirely displayed in one of the trailers (and consequently shown at every single screening) doesn’t help the pacing.

The first act is pretty decent. As expected, it shows us where everyone is, what they’re doing for a living, and how they get back together. During this act, it’s pretty clear that Muschietti is going to give time to develop each character and follow their respective arcs to the end, hence the lengthy runtime. However, the second act falls flat. Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy / Jaeden Martell) has the most emotionally impactful storyline, one that affects the main plot, making the time that is spent with him worth it. Same goes for Richie’s subplot. On the opposite side, the rest of the group doesn’t have entertaining sequences or new developments whatsoever.

Beverly continues to be affected by her childhood of abuse from her father. Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan / Jeremy Ray Taylor) keeps being in love with Bev. Eddie is still a whiny little “kid” who’s scared of everything that might make him ill. Stanley Uris (Andy Bean / Wyatt Oleff) doesn’t do anything, and Mike Hanlon is surprisingly the engine that moves the plot forward, which is a problem of its own since I never really cared for that character (he was definitely the one put aside in the 2017’s movie). Honestly, he just serves as an exposition device considering he spends the whole time just explaining everything the audience needs to know to understand where the film is going.

Finally, the third act is a mixed bag. While it does provide a climactic ending with a sweet message, it feels very much like its predecessor. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s incredibly repetitive comparing to the first movie. Considering all things together, it’s a big letdown since it feels like the exact same film, but with older versions of the characters. Obviously, each of them has a different arc in this one, something the first didn’t have the time to explore, but looking at the main story, it’s pretty much the exact same thing, including how it ends (just with a minor twitch). Nevertheless, the performances are all great…

James McAvoy continues his streak of amazing displays, and Bill Hader has to be the MVP for the range he demonstrates. I wish Skarsgård had more time to shine as Pennywise, though. In 2017, I thought he really nailed the character and made it his own. Unfortunately, this time around, Pennywise doesn’t have that much screentime (such a disappointment), and when it appears, it often looks too CGI-ish, taking away from the gripping performance of its actor. The finale has almost no Bill Skarsgård since there’s so much CGI. Despite that, I congratulate the team(s) behind the makeup, hairstyling, costume, and production design. Derry looks terrific, and the time jumps between the young and the old gang worked seamlessly partially due to these visual achievements.

Andy Muschietti knows how to work a camera, and the movie is very well-shot. However, he should have been able to come up with creative sequences to deliver a different level of entertainment, especially during the tiresome second act. Gary Dauberman’s screenplay is clever, and it brings this enormous story to a fitting conclusion, but he also could have imagined some new ideas for some of the characters. There are a couple of great sequences though, especially one with Bill going through a theme park tent with illusions.

In the end, It Chapter Two fails to deliver a conclusion worthy of its epic runtime. Even with a phenomenal cast, it isn’t as funny, as scary or even as captivating as its predecessor. Its runtime is appropriated having in mind that each character has a personal arc, but only a couple of them are genuinely compelling and entertaining. Therefore, the film feels too long, uneven, and it could have used a bit more creativity when it comes to its climactic finale. Its central story feels very similar to the last movie, its scary sequences are nowhere near the quality seen before, and even though the costume and production design are top-notch, there’s excessive use of CGI on Pennywise. It still carries some emotionally convincing moments, as well as a couple of cool sequences. Overall, it’s … okay.

Rating: C

Chapter 2 was more awesome then the first. I even got a little freaked out myself on some parts. This has easily become one of my favorite horror films of all time.

A step down, but 'It Chapter Two' is still a very good film.

It is, I will say, overly long, it did bore me a little at the midway point; not in a necessarily negative way, I just wanted more. However, it regains its footing with an entertaining ending. I'm usually not a fan of cast changes in film series, but this does it to good effect. I love the characters, whether it be in this film or the preceding entry.

Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader are great choices to play the older versions of Sophia Lillis and Finn Wolfhard, they are very convincing casts. James McAvoy is also a positive addition, while Bill Skarsgård remains enjoyable as It.

The score is, again, strong. I like the plot, even if I do feel like it's stretched out and could've had more freshness added to it. It isn't as creepy as the first film either, but still has a solid amount of uneasiness.