When Fear Returns to a Small Town, So Do the Survivors

Bill Skarsgård in "It: Chapter Two"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com 

Two years ago, director Andy Muschietti gave audiences the thrilling and chilling “It,” the first part of a two-movie adaptation of Stephen King’s mammoth horror novel from 1986.  In the end, it was a vast improvement over the 1990 miniseries, boasting a talented young cast, an emotional story, the spirit of the source material, and a terrifying performance from Bill Skarsgård as antagonist Pennywise the Dancing Clown. 

Following the success of part one, there wasn’t any reason to doubt that part two would deliver the greatness in equal measure.  However, despite a stellar cast and some resonant themes, Andy Muschietti’s “It: Chapter Two” tends to buckle under the weight of its ambition.

Twenty-seven years after the Losers’ Club (Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Glazer, and Wyatt Oleff) defeated Pennywise and made an oath to return to their hometown of Derry, Maine, if he ever re-emerged, a grisly murder occurs in the community.  Upon hearing this and suspecting that Pennywise has come back, the older Losers’ Club (James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, and James Ransone) head back to Derry to conquer this ancient evil once and for all.

Despite the movie not living up to part one, you can’t deny that the acting is terrific all around.  The younger Losers’ Club returns for the movie’s flashback scenes, and their strong chemistry that made the first movie so heartfelt is there in these scenes.  Their adult counterparts are just as skillful at reflecting the on-screen bond of their characters’ younger selves, with all of them proving to be ideal casting choices, especially Hader and Ransone as an older Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak, respectively.  The older Losers’ Club do superb work in displaying the trauma that coming back to Derry has placed on them, and that’s from where most of the film’s drama comes.  This is what keeps you involved in the movie, even when the issues with the script make themselves known.

Skarsgård gets to be a frightening presence once again, but there’s an even bigger use of CGI for his character this time around than what was used in part one, which is a shame because Skarsgård has shown that he can be cause intense shivers with just his voice and facial expressions, so it’s a letdown that he’s not given much screen time for those aspects of his performance. 

The screenplay by Gary Dauberman, who cowrote part one with Chase Palmer and Cary Fukunaga (the latter of whom was set to direct “It” before stepping down over creative differences) finds its strength when it focuses on the anguish that the older Losers feel when they go back to Derry and must face their greatest fears.  What’s unfortunate is how the narrative goes back and forth between the past and present of the Losers, so there are times where it feels like we’re not given enough time with the older cast members to see them sort through their distress.  While the flashbacks could have worked because of the novel going between the past and present, as well as the characters receiving pieces of their childhood memories upon returning to Derry, it’s all undone because those flashbacks come far too often and pause the momentum of the adult characters’ arc.  The younger Losers were given a whole movie in which they could develop their characters, so part two shouldn’t have dedicated so much time to them, and you soon get the feeling that you’re watching deleted scenes from part one whenever part two shifts its focus back to the younger Losers.  The movie runs about two hours and 45 minutes, meaning that it’s half an hour longer than part one, and the aforementioned flashbacks are the prime cause of that unnecessary length.

Despite these flaws, Dauberman is able to find a way to incorporate Pennywise’s origins into the screenplay, while avoiding the other aspects of his beginnings that wouldn’t have worked on screen.  If you’ve read the book, you know Stephen King’s psychedelic craziness within the details of how Pennywise came to be, and I can’t think of anyway as to how some of that could have translated well to this adaptation.  However, Dauberman takes the details that lend themselves well to film and is able to create a history of Pennywise that still carries some likeness of what can be found in the novel.

Muschietti uses too many jump scares throughout the movie, which are accompanied by, of course, loud music stings, and what’s worse is that you can spot these scares coming from 10 miles away.  He's able to construct a few tense scenes, such as one that takes place in the darkness underneath a set of bleachers at a local baseball game, in which Muschietti makes an effective use of shadows to conceal most of Pennywise, and a claustrophobic scene later on in a hall of mirrors at a town fair.  However, as unsettling as these scenes are, Muschietti tends to fall back on jump scares in order to create easy jolts.

With the young Losers returning, the film uses de-aging technology to make those cast members appear as their ages from part one.  Although this special effect works well enough in some places, there are other areas where it doesn’t, particularly in a scene within the Losers’ clubhouse, where the de-aging for Ben and Eddie’s characters can be difficult to look at.

Given the film’s lengthy runtime, you can see that it’s going for a bigger-is-better approach, and there isn’t anyplace where that’s more apparent that in the CGI-heavy showdown between the Losers and Pennywise.  There’s so much going on in this last half hour, so it ends up feeling rather chaotic and going on longer than it has to.

This duology could have been an accomplished vision of King’s novel, but “It: Chapter Two” has trouble matching the scares and heart that made the first film so memorable.  I guess Pennywise is having the last laugh.

Grade: C+