It Chapter 2 – I Can’t Think of Something Clever

Kids, I am going to give you all a special treat for this review, and start this off with a limerick…

There once was an actor named Hader
Who acts as well as a tater
He can’t act worth a shit
Has the range of a zit
Role should have gone to Dietrich Bader

Jay Roach

  I used up all of the entertainment budget Overlord John allowed, and went to see “It Chapter 2″ with my oldest son.  He is way more into horror movies than I am, and so a second set of eyes on it, plus discussing it, would give me the best chance to get you a proper review.

  Now, I’m going to start out with what I didn’t like.  There’s not a lot, so we’ll end on a positive, and everyone but Bill Hader will be happy with this review.

  For the most part, the casting was very good, but there were two in it that I didn’t care for.  By the above limerick, the first one was Bill Hader.  I don’t think he is that good of an actor, nor is he funny enough to play a comedian.  So he resolved to overacting, wasn’t very convincing, and was wrong for the part.  Perhaps it was because I was envisioning, as an adult, Richie Tozier struck me as a more high energy type of guy, much as a Robin Williams, and very annoying.  Instead he was a guy who wasn’t good at acting scared, and not that annoying or quick witted like I imagined Richie, since in the book, and the kid who played him, were all of these things.

  The other one I didn’t care for is James McAvoy.  My only real issue was he was too short for the role, as Bill was tall, and if you watch him when he’s not on camera, his face is contorting like he has Tourette’s.  I like James McAvoy as an actor, but I just felt he was miscast.

  I felt they missed the boat on not doing much with Beverly Marsh’s husband.  He just sort of disappeared in the movie, and you missed the tension of him following his wife, because he is an abusive dickhead.

  And another thing they missed out on was Henry Bowers.  Henry added a lot more tension in the book, did a lot more damage, and was a really good bad guy.  In the movie, he seemed to be a loose end that needed tied up, and they did it rather shoddily.

  I do have a bit of an issue with the timeline though.  Originally, the first part was set in the 50’s, and the adults in the 80’s.  Instead, they pushed it forward.  I feel this made the kids lose a bit of their naivety, because by the 80’s, kids were getting hammered with “don’t go with strangers”, where the 50’s were a more trusting time, other than commies and pinkos, because they were EVERYWHERE.

  And lastly, some of the characters Pennywise conjures up are just amazing, Special FX gems.  And then some of them look like a 7^th grade art project gone bad.  So bad, it was off putting, and what should have been a scary scene, came across as a bit stupid.

  Other than that though, I did enjoy the movie.  The rest of the cast was pretty good.  Jessica Chastain was great as Beverly, as was James Ransone as Eddie.  And Bill Skarsgard was amazing as Pennywise.  I was a big fan of the casting of the kids, and they were in and out of the movie in flashbacks.

  I thought they stayed relatively close to the book other than them messing up the era’s.  To be honest, I like that they split it up into two movies.  There’s too much book to fit into one, and this allowed some room for what Stephen King does best, which is paint a picture.

  The movie really flowed well.  It was almost three hours long, and it went by very fast.  They didn’t over dwell on scenes, or overplay them, much like how King writes.

  There is a running gag throughout the movie about Bill as a writer, which is my same complaint about King, so I am guessing it was a gentle poke at the critics, and perhaps himself.

  Stephen King cameo’s as an old Maine shop keeper, and comes across as crusty as he does on twitter, though not as moronic.

  The scares in this was a lot of jump scares.  The parts that could have been creepier with better monsters, missed for me, but the CGI effects were on point.  When Bill reaches into the sewer, that was a masterpiece.

  I’d also like to say that they did a nice job finding adults that matched the kids, other than Richie and Bill.  The rest I thought was spot on.  Ben was sort of iffy, but he was a giant leap better than when John Ritter played him, so he gets a pass.

  On a whole, as a horror film, it was average, with mostly jump scares.  As a book adaptation, it was really good, especially for a King book, because some don’t translate well, or just shouldn’t have been made.  As an overall movie, I thought it was really good.  Probably a little too scary for smaller children, but kids are pussies today, so what isn’t?

  Go see “It Chapter 2”.  It really is an above average movie.  As for sequels I have seen this year, I’d rank it ahead of “Endgame” on my personal scale, but that is just me.

  As always, please send all your hate mail c/o Kentucky Regan, he is in charge of that.  All glowing praise can be sent to @jaycanchu on Twitter or Instagram, or you can work a little and find my Facebook.

Stay out of the sewers kids