It Chapter Two is a 2019 supernatural horror film and the sequel to the 2017 film It, both based on the 1986 novel by Stephen King and both directed by Andy Muschietti. Centers around a group of grownups who come together once again to battle a supernatural clown that terrorized them as kids. It Chapter Two (2019) movie review
The movie runs around 270 minutes and a big portion is spent on getting the adults together. They also try to convince each other to leave their established life to fight a demon clown. It keeps going back and forth between the time they were kids and being adults, but it’s not overly annoying. The runtime, while somewhat necessary considering book is over 1,000 pages, some people debate that the runtime should be earned through established atmosphere and interesting premise that holds our attention, rather than focus on cheap jumpscares and subpar CGI. It gives the movie a cheap way of scaring us and not focusing on natural tension through music and atmosphere. Muschietti has proved to be a good director, so why rely on overused tropes to scares us?
One of the things that people liked, and I will have to agree, is the casting. The adults were perfectly cast and even look very similarly to the kids in the first It movie. The adults have a great chemistry among each other. However the they are separated for a big chunk of movie where they go about confronting their fears/finding their totems. It was fine but you will keep waiting until they get to the character you like.
Not all of their backstories/fears are fun to watch. Besides, a lot could have been taken out of this movie’s runtime if these characters pulled their totems out of their pocket and let us know why it is important to them. On top of this there were a lot of badly timed jokes that were a swing and a miss. They were not funny, more awkward than funny.
Some things like the spider or the giant park statue attack make you question whether you’re watching the same movie. The movie is stuffed with random scenes that are either not scary or are not necessary. You end up being bored rather than entertained. The itelf (and I won’t spoil it) is such a let down that I cou;dn’t stop laughing. Some reviewers have mentioned that the “scary parts” like the little dog part, are more funny than actually scary.
One could argue that when you laugh in a presence of fear, the overall impact it has on you is subdued, but I don’t know if this was intentional or not. In terms of Pennywise himself, I feel like he doesn’t want to kill anybody. His toying, while increases ones fear, gets boring and repetitive. This is more true in the last movie, though.
Overall, the movie was good but it suffers from not developing characters well, relying on jumpscares, and taking its sweet time with EVERYTHING, including the boring stuff. It is not bad but it does have some great performances, but it drags on for what feels like forever. I might get some hate but I feel like this would have been a great 10 episode series on Netflix instead of a movie that made my ass all sweaty from seating.
Thanks for reading my It Chapter Two (2019) movie review
