Review: It Chapter Two

Release date: September 6, 2019
Running time: 169 minutes
Starring:  Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader 

The Losers are back together in Derry for the sequel to 2017's surprisingly good remake of Stephen King's It.  Twenty seven years have passed since the friends journeyed into the sewers to face It, and despite many of them leaving Derry, they are drawn back to their hometown when events start repeating themselves.  

The best thing about this film is the casting; the film crew did a phenomenal job getting older versions of the friends, finding talented actors that also look similar to the original Losers club.  McAvoy is convincing as an older Bill, Chastain is as strong and broken as Beverly, and Hader is funny and kind of a jerk as Richie.  It is good that they are convincing as the movie contains several scenes featuring both old and young versions of the friends.  The cast are sometimes seamlessly mixed and the characters make for convincing versions of each other.  Additionally, the film does a good job of continuing and growing on the story of the first, something that I would not have expected given how the first film wrapped up.  

However, the film continues the story in a long and drawn out way; the movie definitely feels every minute of its 169 minute run time.  I'm not against long movies by any means, but this film felt like it was unnecessarily long.  A part in the middle especially didn’t progress the story much and added about an hour to the overall film.  And despite the film's long run time, it still leaves a lot of the backstory of Pennywise missing and also has an unsatisfying conclusion to this long journey.  And It Chapter Two suffers from the same CG issues that break your suspension of disbelief during some of the scary scenes.  The build up is fantastic, but when the actual reveal happens, the effects look off and clearly computer generated, which turns the actual scare into something of a ridiculous situation.  It really hurt the sense of immersion in the first movie and does the same in this one.  

It Chapter Two reunites the Losers with the iconic clown, but does so in an unnecessarily long way.  The film has a fantastic cast and a ton of tension, but the long run time and ridiculous CG effects spoil the overall experience.  

Rent it