It Chapter 2 has officially arrived in theaters. It's the follow-up to 2017's wildly successful and acclaimed It adaptation, but does the sequel live up to those standards? Read on for our full review and then check out our look at the ending and spoiler review chat.
The decision paid off beautifully for Chapter 1, transforming the cerebral novel into a Goonies-flavored coming-of-age adventure with a cast of magnetic, scrappy, lovable kids who faced off against a monster and learned all sorts of lessons about life, love, and friendship along the way. In Chapter 2, however, the cracks in the concept begin to show, and ultimately, the final chapter fails to maintain the spark of the first, succumbing to a dangerous cocktail of muddled timelines, poorly placed novel call-backs, and scattered focus.
Chapter 2 is not a total loss. The adult cast, consisting of James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Andy Bean and Jay Ryan, manage to embody credible versions of the children in Chapter 1. Their chemistry is electric, their mood is perfect, and His ensemble scenes are by far the strongest part of the movie. It's hard not to love the Losers Club, even all these years later.
Unfortunately, their ensemble scenes are sparked relatively sparingly in long and long stretches of artificial side missions that force each Loser to separate to relive some of their repressed childhood memories. Such repressed memories usually come as a package with flashbacks, and although it was not a bad idea to pass chunks of this movie with the children of Chapter 1 again, these scenes begin to feel redundant almost immediately. Each loser seems trapped in a feedback loop, forced to repeat the same rhythms and learn the same lessons we saw the first time.
Bill is still sad to lose his brother, Eddie is still afraid of infections and germs, Bev is still dealing with the memory of his monstrous father. The exception to this rule is Richie Tozier (Bill Hader), who is the only one of the Losers to get a completely new bow. It could be said that his new story is the most personal and interesting option that Chapter 2 has chosen, astronomically reinforced by Hader giving one of the best, if not the best, performances of the set, but the film never promises to be the center of Attention. Instead, Richie is still frustratingly a secondary character, playing the second stringer of the comforting food of Chapter 1 that is repeated endlessly as Bev's perpetual and one-sided crush.
That strange tug of war between new and old ideas does not begin or end there. Complete scenes from Chapter 2 are extracted directly from the source material with little or no reflection on how or where they fit into the new dynamic of the dual film. Entire subplots, such as the story of Henry Bowers, resume and wander aimlessly, occasionally stop to wink at the camera and say "hey, do you remember this from the book?" before they run out without reward. Meanwhile, some of the plot's newest points, such as a totally reinvented "Ritual Of Chüd," a magical ceremony used in the novel but kept out of Chapter 1, completely divorce the original material and become so Unrecognizable that honestly disconcerting that they managed to reach the final cut.
In terms of scares, Chapter 2 offers approximately 60% of the time. Bill Skarsgard has returned to repeat the role of Pennywise, the clown, and is as disturbing and disturbing as the first time. He even manages to remain as threatening and threatening, scaring a group of 40-year-olds as terrorizing a group of preteens, so it is certainly an achievement. However, for every really amazing scare that Chapter 2 has to offer, there are two more spoiled by an awkward CGI or predictable jumps.
Tonally, Chapter 2 is similar throughout the place. There are almost too many laughter splashed to reduce tension: they begin to feel forced and artificial. Where children were able to escape with jokes of miles per minute by virtue of being, well, children, adults have more difficulty in achieving it. It's not that the jokes themselves aren't fun, they absolutely are, but there really should have been fewer of them, just to make the terror more effective.
It all culminates in a series of final scenes that embody the best and worst of the film: nothing matches or makes sense, but it's still fun to see these characters come together to face a scary clown monster. Even if the logic does not work, you will desperately want the losers to come to mind.
The decision paid off beautifully for Chapter 1, transforming the cerebral novel into a Goonies-flavored coming-of-age adventure with a cast of magnetic, scrappy, lovable kids who faced off against a monster and learned all sorts of lessons about life, love, and friendship along the way. In Chapter 2, however, the cracks in the concept begin to show, and ultimately, the final chapter fails to maintain the spark of the first, succumbing to a dangerous cocktail of muddled timelines, poorly placed novel call-backs, and scattered focus.
Chapter 2 is not a total loss. The adult cast, consisting of James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Andy Bean and Jay Ryan, manage to embody credible versions of the children in Chapter 1. Their chemistry is electric, their mood is perfect, and His ensemble scenes are by far the strongest part of the movie. It's hard not to love the Losers Club, even all these years later.
Unfortunately, their ensemble scenes are sparked relatively sparingly in long and long stretches of artificial side missions that force each Loser to separate to relive some of their repressed childhood memories. Such repressed memories usually come as a package with flashbacks, and although it was not a bad idea to pass chunks of this movie with the children of Chapter 1 again, these scenes begin to feel redundant almost immediately. Each loser seems trapped in a feedback loop, forced to repeat the same rhythms and learn the same lessons we saw the first time.
Bill is still sad to lose his brother, Eddie is still afraid of infections and germs, Bev is still dealing with the memory of his monstrous father. The exception to this rule is Richie Tozier (Bill Hader), who is the only one of the Losers to get a completely new bow. It could be said that his new story is the most personal and interesting option that Chapter 2 has chosen, astronomically reinforced by Hader giving one of the best, if not the best, performances of the set, but the film never promises to be the center of Attention. Instead, Richie is still frustratingly a secondary character, playing the second stringer of the comforting food of Chapter 1 that is repeated endlessly as Bev's perpetual and one-sided crush.
That strange tug of war between new and old ideas does not begin or end there. Complete scenes from Chapter 2 are extracted directly from the source material with little or no reflection on how or where they fit into the new dynamic of the dual film. Entire subplots, such as the story of Henry Bowers, resume and wander aimlessly, occasionally stop to wink at the camera and say "hey, do you remember this from the book?" before they run out without reward. Meanwhile, some of the plot's newest points, such as a totally reinvented "Ritual Of Chüd," a magical ceremony used in the novel but kept out of Chapter 1, completely divorce the original material and become so Unrecognizable that honestly disconcerting that they managed to reach the final cut.
In terms of scares, Chapter 2 offers approximately 60% of the time. Bill Skarsgard has returned to repeat the role of Pennywise, the clown, and is as disturbing and disturbing as the first time. He even manages to remain as threatening and threatening, scaring a group of 40-year-olds as terrorizing a group of preteens, so it is certainly an achievement. However, for every really amazing scare that Chapter 2 has to offer, there are two more spoiled by an awkward CGI or predictable jumps.
Tonally, Chapter 2 is similar throughout the place. There are almost too many laughter splashed to reduce tension: they begin to feel forced and artificial. Where children were able to escape with jokes of miles per minute by virtue of being, well, children, adults have more difficulty in achieving it. It's not that the jokes themselves aren't fun, they absolutely are, but there really should have been fewer of them, just to make the terror more effective.
It all culminates in a series of final scenes that embody the best and worst of the film: nothing matches or makes sense, but it's still fun to see these characters come together to face a scary clown monster. Even if the logic does not work, you will desperately want the losers to come to mind.
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