It: Chapter Two demonstrates how little director Andy Muschietti had left in his bag of tricks following the first film. It’s got all the same problems as its predecessor - lame, repetitive scares and an overreliance on computer-generated trickery. Add to the mix a frantic, unfocused storyline, which never manages to find its way and an unnecessarily long running length and you’ve got a film that never manages to live up to the charms of its predecessor. It’s a tonal mess, leapfrogging horror for comedy at nearly every and plays plays out many of the same beats as the first film, but without the benefit of that film’s pre-teen cast and their energetic chemistry.
As I mentioned in my review of the first film, It is my favorite of Stephen King’s novels. While it’s typically labeled as nothing more than ‘the one with the creepy clown,’ people neglect to mention it’s also a genuinely affecting and thoughtful coming-of-age tale. Aside from King’s standard unforgettable scares and terrifying imagery, his story said something profound about the nature of growing up, the importance of friendship and the bittersweetness of leaving your childhood behind.
There’s an overabundance of narrative and thematic ground to cover in this 1,100+ page tome. While the novel intercuts the grown-up Losers’ story with that of their childhood counterparts’, Muschietti and company opted to split the adult’s portion and the kids’ portion into two separate entities. On paper it seems like a smart idea, but the reality proves otherwise. In King’s novel, the intercutting format allows the reader to rediscover the adult Losers’ childhood memories as the characters’ do. When the two stories are split in two, all it accomplishes is further re-emphasizing information we already know, drawing attention to the repetitive nature of the story. We know how things will play out because we’ve already seen the entire story in the first film and this robs It: Chapter Two of much of its potential for suspense and mystery.
Somehow three hours feels both too long and not long enough. The first hour’s chaotic pacing and editing finds It: Chapter Two’s screenplay struggling to discover its way. I don’t envy Gary Dauberman, the sequel’s sole screenwriter. He’s tasked with re-introducing no less than seven characters, catching us up with their adult iterations and sending them back to Derry for a showdown with an evil clown. The sheer amount of information thrown at viewers makes it difficult to register the reunion between these characters. We’re supposed to believe these are the same life-long friends we’ve come to know and love, but because we’ve spent so little time learning who they are in the present day, it doesn’t feel like we know them at all. Whereas the source material frames the battle between the Losers and Pennywise as an epic showdown between the forces of good and evil, the film version portrays it as little more than ‘group of kids fights scary monster.’ There’s no sense of the greater stakes and it makes the battle at the center of both these films feel insignificant.
The film never recovers from the disconnect between the adult Losers and their younger counterparts. While the ensemble is strong, made up of the likes of James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader, there’s little chemistry between them. Hader, as has already been stated, is the highlight here. His youthful performance brings the energy and humanity It: Chapter Two sorely needs. His interactions with James Ransone’s Eddie provide many of the film’s best moments.
The remaining cast members, while giving solid takes, are surprisingly stiff and awkward. McAvoy never seems comfortable in the role of Bill Denborough and it doesn’t help that his and Chastain’s ‘romance’ feels shoehorned in. The lack of chemistry between the adult versions of these characters holds It: Chapter Two back from hitting its emotional beats. Every time the film flashes back to the Losers as kids, it reminded me just how well the young ensemble worked as a unit and how much the first film benefited from their involvement. Their presence is sorely missed this time around.
And then there’s Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the clown. It’s as if Muschetti didn’t trust that Skarsgard’s take would be frightening enough. At nearly every opportunity, the performance is amplified by hokey computer-generated effects that diminish the work Skarsgard is doing. Maybe it’s just the reality of the situation: the more you see of Pennywise, the less scary he is. Seeing as how we’ve already seen an awful lot of him in the last film and nearly three hours worth of him in this one, it’s no wonder Muschetti struggled to make it work. But the addition of morphing, CGI faces don’t help the cause and, in fact, take away from Skarsgard’s effectiveness in the role.
Just as ineffective are the goofy, computer-generated monstrosities that pop out of every which corner to terrify our heroes. There are a few genuinely effective scares, such as when Jessica Chastain’s Beverly pays a visit to her childhood home, or a scene in which Pennywise lures a young girl to her demise under the bleachers during a sporting event. The film’s final act also features a number of inventive sequences that give it a much needed jolt. For the most part though, the scares play out in exactly the same way: a disembodied voice lures one of our heroes off to a dark, secluded area where a monster is waiting to pop out and provide the obligatory jump scare. This happens to every single one of the main characters, and it plays out in nearly the exact same way every time. Any potential for terror is diminished by the repetitiveness. It ends up being annoying more than anything else.
Sadly, It: Chapter Two feels like an obligatory comedown from the unexpected high of the first film, almost as if the filmmakers themselves weren’t sure how to live up to expectations and decided to scrap the whole attempt. Ultimately this adaptation fails because it lacks the emotional nuance and sense of stakes established in Stephen King’s novel. By honing in on cheap scares and cramming in unnecessary subplots, Muscheitti loses the essential heart of the story. His ambitions are admirable, but the final product sinks rather than floats.
FINAL RATING: 2/5
