It: Chapter Two

A psychologically merciless sequel, everything here is as it should be: deeper, scarier, funnier. Muschietti in particular has stepped up, skilfully guiding us through a rollicking funhouse. It is obscenely entertaining.

The ultimate problem with this remake. King’s novel argues that evil is cyclical and that we never really outgrow our childhood fears because our childhood fears never really end. But It: Chapter Two muddles this message. It tries to convince us, not very effectively, that the evil in Derry can be fully defeated. But it also wants us to know that the real evil in Derry is Derry itself and that Derry is every small American town.

It’s an appreciably less-engaging film in every way, suffering from lurching storytelling, wild vacillations in tone (even within scenes), and a strong cast that never fully gels as a group.

By selectively whittling down the novel’s interwoven time lines and characters, It Chapter Two refocuses its telling of King’s 1,100-plus-page bestseller into not just a scary clown movie — which it also is, thanks to Bill Skarsgård’s demented return as the trans-dimensional titular monster — but an elegy of memory, trauma and healing, minus the more extreme and controversial elements of the novel.

It’s a whole lot less scary or fun the second time around.

It Chapter Two is a film in need of a good ending. How badly it needs that ending is never in question, either. Hell, the movie cries out for help on the subject.

It Chapter Two has structural problems, character problems, and aesthetic problems.... But the movie’s main issue is an unexamined streak of cruelty.

Considero que el único problema con esta secuela es que tiene demasiados flashbacks al pasado pero si no fuera por eso la película sería absolutamente hermosa y perfecta

Some scenes of madcap hilarity are offset by a formulaic approach to jump scare horror. The performers are terrific. Billy Skars nails the titular role again, with Hader, McAvoy, and Chastain anchoring the adult Loser Club folks. The opening scene is terrifically adapted from King's novel, and might be the most unsettling thing in either movie of this series. As a fan of the book, this was very satisfying and worth the price of admission. I appreciate how this movie went for broke in a number of ways, but it ultimately is below the original due to a lack of consistent tone throughout. The first one nailed a Spielberg/Stranger Things mishmash of 80s nostalgia, whereas this is a bit more scattershot. Still fun in parts, though.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Everyone keeps screaming, yelling and cursing every two seconds it becomes annoying quite quickly. Big Bill does not feel like Big Bill at all (yes, he does have a little more agency than the others but the bar is very low). What bothers me the most is how half of the Losers want to bail at the slightest sign of trouble. I think this is the greatest contradiction in relation to previous materials, because the motivation to stop It and prevent It from killing more kids is supposedly stronger than their fear, though this is not felt at all in this adaptation.

A confusing mess of flashbacks and new actors having a hard time adapting to their role, accompanied by even less horror. It's the Disney+ sequel of the first movie. If James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain can't save your script, its just a really bad script.