IT Chapter 2 (2019) Review

IT Chapter 2 takes us 27 years after the first film ended where the now-adult Losers club reunite in Derry, Maine end to IT's reign of terror. I've found the first IT from 2017 decent and a cool. new take on the classic Stephen King novel by placing it in the 80s. It had really good performances from the kid actors and one entertainingly, sinister rendition of Pennywise the Dancing Clown by Bill Skarsgard. So I was looking forward to the sequel based on how it looked from the trailers in that it would seemingly double the scares and the balloons, too.

Firstly, some of the adult cast members I thought were perfect fits for their young counterparts. The best examples include James Ransone as Eddie, Isiah Mustafa as Mike, and Bill Hader as Richie who was the standout out of them all. The others ranged from ok to eh, with Jessica Chastain in the latter. As for Bill Skarsgard, he was still enjoyably creepy as Pennywise and owned every scene he was in.

For those Stephen King aficionados out there, there are some references from King's other work that you would either get a kick out of or roll your eyes at. There's also a running joke where Bill, who's a writer, is criticized for his poor endings. I suppose this is a meta-joke where King has been criticized for underwhelming resolutions. But to be fair, some of King's stories had strong endings like Misery, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption which had one of the most beautiful and emotionally satisfying endings I've seen. But this is based on the film adaptions.

But that's all the good things I have to say about this film. The first of my issues have to do with the movie using a lot of flashbacks with the kid actors. It wouldn't be much of an issue if they didn't use de-aging CGI on the ones who grew up significantly like Finn Wolfhard (Richie) and Jack Dylan Grazer (Eddie). The results weren't up to snuff. They looked too polished and clean like they were living dolls. They could've cut those scenes down and I wouldn't complain. Also, the forms that Pennywise takes on get very cartoony. In fact, I was wondering how they were going to do the final showdown based on my knowledge of the original miniseries from the 90s. What this movie brings I have to say is not much of an upgrade. It's equally ridiculous

Overall, IT Chapter 2 provides some decent performances and sequences but falls short in terms of scares or making anything better. It's interesting because the second part of the miniseries is considered the weakest compared to the first part. I think the first half of IT will always strike a chord with people because we can think back to our childhood and how we came across scary images from TV or our own imagination. It's just not as strong if it's from the perspective of an adult.

RATING: MODEST APPROVAL (B-)