Reviewed by: Greg Mueller

Greg's Score:
4.25

Plot/Story

2

Characters

6

Acting

8

Cinematography

8

Production Design

4

Soundtrack

3

Execution

1

Emotional Impact

2


Review:

It Chapter Two is a mess. The acting is great (even if the chemistry isn't as good between the adults as the kids), there were some really cool camera shots, and I liked the little nods to other King novels, but I hated everything else. Chapter Two is almost three hours long, about half an hour longer than the first movie, and you feel every minute. There were so many scenes that accomplish nothing and just being a scene that was in the book doesn't make it any better. There are tons of things from the book that they skipped that would have been great, so the pawn shop scene being in the book doesn't validate its place in the movie. I understand making a few changes, but the ending is so much worse than the book. Stephen King writes terrible endings. Every single one of his books that I have read is great up until act three and then it becomes total dog shit. It Chapter Two is so much worse in every way. There is one bit that I really want to address, but I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that they add dimensions to characters that are in no way even remotely hinted at in the book, in the first movie, or in the first two hours of this movie. It feels like a forced element just to tick a box on the checklist some who will never even see this movie anyway. It's really shame because the cast is great, again not as good as the younger cast, but still great. The CGI is pretty awful, but the script is 85% of what is wrong with this movie. The pacing is just so bad because they spend way too long setting up everything the first movie already set up and constantly deflate all the tension with a random joke. It Chapter Two is far more concerned with trying to be funny than it is trying to be scary. I get that Richie is a comedian, but every fucking scene Bill Hader is in is just him making awful jokes and then they make Eddie joke around the whole movie too. Bill Hader is doing a great job with his character, but his character is so annoying and grating, even worse than Harry Anderson's tone deaf portrayal. Even Pennywise trying to be scary is funny half of the time. In the first movie, he'd being doing something similar and it would be creepy and unsettling, in Chapter Two it's mostly just coming of as comic. The first movie had three co-writers and Chapter Two was just Gary Dauberman and based on the other movies he's written, I feel pretty safe blaming him for this awful script. The CGI is pretty terrible too, but the script is what really tanked this sequel. It Chapter Two is a bastardization of the book and a total waste of the acclaim the first film built. The cast is good and the cinematography was fun. This is everything that isn't garbage.

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