IT: Chapter 2 Review

IT: Chapter 2 picks up 27 years after the events from the first film & follows the Losers Club as adults, who now have to remember their promise & return to Derry to take down Pennywise for the final time.

Sadly, the sequel does not have the balanced story that the first film has. In the first film, the audience were meeting the Losers Club & the citizens of Derry for the first time, which brought about a natural sense of excitement when we watched the Losers Club unite to take down Pennywise & got to see how friendship that was once solid could be easily shattered. When it comes to the adult cast, even after their memories started to come back, they felt bland & at times out of place.

The adult actors were on par when it comes to looking like their child counterparts but this doesn’t transition well for some of the adult actors when it comes to acting like their younger selves. You feel this heavily with Adult Eddie, who is played by James Ransone. Ransone looked the part but felt like he was trying too hard to be his younger self instead of letting it flow naturally. Jay Ryan, who played adult Ben didn’t bring much to the table either. I feel that they could’ve done more with Ben’s jealousy towards Bill & Bev. I mean, they highlighted this in Chapter 1 & multiple times in this film & did nothing with it. I might be amongst the few that feel this way, but I feel that McAvoy was miscast as adult Bill. McAvoy, at times, felt like he was phoning it in & didn’t have that leader’s edge that Bill should’ve had.

They also show us Bill’s wife briefly at the beginning of the film & reveal some tension between the two but we see no more of her after her few minutes of screen time. Those of us who’ve read the book know that she should’ve had a pivotal role to play that would’ve pushed Bill to want to square off with Pennywise alone, but this was given to a boy from Derry who pops up twice in the film. I also didn’t like the change they made to Richie, who was played by Bill Hader. I found this change to be unnecessary & a forced layer of this story. Teach Grant, who played adult Henry & Andy Bean, who played adult Stanley did what he could with the little he was given, but I wanted to see a little more from Henry.

The major problems that I had with this film were the bad CG & the forgotten memory parts of the film that really dragged the film. Andy Muschietti De-aged the kids & it showed a lot on Finn Wolfhard, Jeremy Ray & Wyatt Oleff. Did it take me out of the movie? Not so much. However, it is noticeable & laughable at times. The monsters that Pennywise transformed into looked incredibly fake & out of sync with the world around them, especially in the scene with “hot-head” Beverley. It would’ve been nice if Muschietti went with practical effects with some of these monsters. The final battle & climax of the film was lackluster. How they eventually defeated Pennywise was 80’s cheesy & far from satisfying.

Despite my many issues with the film, there were some things that I liked. Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, Jessica Chastain as adult Beverley, Isaiah Mustafa as adult Mike & Bill Hader as adult Richie were all solid. Some might disagree, but I enjoyed Pennywise’s true form. 

Overall, IT: Chapter 2 does fall short of the 2017 film & could’ve done without the dry flashback scenes & forced changes to characters.