It’s Not That Great (SPOILERS)
In the 170-minute magnum opus It: Chapter Two, sophisticated cinephiles will appreciate the appearences of Xavier Dolan and Peter Bogdanovich, but normie horror fans will loathe Andy Muschietti’s character driven second act of Stephen King’s It, as it might have not enough normie jumpscares for them. The film is littered with cheap jumpscares, though it’s not the interesting part of “it”.
27 years after gang of The Losers Club supposedly killed “It” (Bill Skarsgård), Adrian Mellon (Xavier Dolan) is found dead, dismembered. Mike Hanlon (Isiah Mustafa) believes “It” has returned and calls The Losers Club — Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy), Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain), Richie Tozier (Bill Hader), Eddie Kapsbrak (James Ransone), Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan) and Stanley Uris (Andy Bean). All of them have supposedly moved on from Derry, except Mike, and agree to return to Derry and finish the job they once swore, except Stanley who commits suicide in fear, apologizing spiritually to Bill. The film is, essentially, the characters of The Losers Club reminiscing about their past and trying to defeat, once and for all, “It”, before “it” murders more innocent children.
Obviously, the best part of It: Chapter Two is still the best part of 2017’s It, Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Dancing Clown (It) — delivering the best performance of his career (Act II) as one of the scariest horror villains in textual form, to visual form. Skarsgård is as unpredictable and batshit crazy as he was in It, but he is wholly underused. Every scene he would be in, I would be scared out of my mind, due to Pennywise’s unpredictable nature. One of the most disturbing scenes, in which he seduces a young girl in blowing her birthmark off her face with a countdown (“One…Two…”), stopping at two with his face completely dropped while he stares at the little girl completely creeped me out, and then the best jumpscare of the entire film; the little girl has the misfortune of saying “You’re supposed to say…” and she gets eaten by Pennywise. The scene scared the audience and myself. The other “scary” scene that shows how brilliant Skarsgård is in the role is Richie’s “secret”, which is one of the most disturbing sequences of the film, and the most effective 180 of a jumpscare I’ve seen in quite some time. It reinvented the term jumpscare and soared it to new heights with unpredictability, and, in this sequence, the visuals and sounds are vital to its appreciation — the color changes once Pennywise enters scene and starts singing about Richie’s secret. Then, after a flashback in which we see Young Richie (Finn Wolfhard) being attacked by a Paul Bunyan statue, closing his eyes and repeating “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real!”, Adult Richie does the same thing, in which the color changes back to normal, thinking that it was in fact not real, until, the color comes back up and Pennywise gives you the scare of a generation. I genuinely find Pennywise frightening, and he embodies exactly why young children are afraid of clowns; they’re unpredictably terrifying and will make the weirdest faces to make you laugh, but it’s going to be the exact opposite.
It’s a shame that most scares that don’t involve Pennywise are cheap and predictable jumpscares. Since 2017’s It was mostly about Pennywise, many of the film’s other “its” look scary, but are used in such cheap ways. The film’s second act involves The Losers Club returning to Derry, going to a specific location in which they find an “artefact” that will be used to perform a ritual in which “It” will be killed, and it’s presented in the same structure; one character, in the present, goes somewhere, sees something that makes him/her reminisce about the past. CUT TO: Flashback, until they are attacked by an “It”, either in the past or in the present. Running at almost three hours, these scenes are incredibly long and a lot of it (if you will) could’ve been cut. The first act follows (a bit) the same structure, in which every character is reintroduced with their adult actor one-by-one (à la Suicide Squad without flipping pages), but the first act is terrific. We get why Andy Muschietti decided to present the characters that way; it allows us to see how they have evolved and how they act in 2016. Then, The Losers Club reunite in a terrific sequence, until they split-up and the overlong second & third act takes place. The second act is the weakest part of the film, as it has unnecessary flashbacks (if I was the director, I would’ve cut them all) that literally add NOTHING to the initial story. I didn’t care about any of those scenes, other than the fact that it was cool to see the original cast return, I guess, but the sequences weren’t interesting and compelling. So who cares, right? If you cut every single flashback sequence, the movie would probably be 130-ish minutes. Yes, there’s at least 40 minutes of flashbacks. The only good flashback sequence involves Ben Hanscom as he is attacked by Pennywise. That scene was scary, but if only Pennywise was in every individual character sequence, because you’re stuck with pointless “its” that are non-scary and, sometimes, uninentionally hilarious.
The second act was a major problem, especially the character development. Instead of focusing on the adult characters, Muschietti decides to say “It was better before” (like a true north Conservative) and puts a boatload of flashbacks to try and “develop” the adult characters from their child counterparts. It doesn’t work. At all. I’m a fan of every single actor that plays the adults Losers, especially James McAvoy, whom I think is the stand-out (yes, better than Bill Hader’s overrated comedic schtick). When he becomes afraid of “It”, his stammer returns and then his performance kicks into gear. He’s absolutely fantastic. I was mixed on Bill Hader’s development as Tozier, particularly the writing of thatsaid character and how he is a comic-relief instead of being actually useful, until the end where he gives a surprinsingly emotional reaction to Eddie’s death after he thinks he defeated “It” when he believed a small sharp object would kill “It”. That was, I think, the most sincere part of Hader’s performance as Richie. Isiah Mustafa is another stand-out, alongside Jessica Chastain as Adult Beverly. Mustafa gives the film’s many expository lines, but he is always compelling when he says something. The trippy sequence in which he drugs Bill for him to understand how to kill “It” is one of the film’s best visual sequences, and Mustafa’s narration enhances the scene even more. The sequence is probably the film’s most excitingly visual sequence in IMAX. The film should be sought-out in IMAX — due to its amazing cinematography and terrific sound quality. When it’s scary, it’s scary. And IMAX puts you in the middle of the action. I’ve never seen Pennywise that scary before (well, I saw the first one in IMAX and almost shit my pants so there’s that).
And then the third act kicks in. Though parts of the climax is effective, it’s still too long (Pennywise’s death and splat-out face reminded me of The Moon in Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon) . The climax feels streteched-out, and there was one time where I thought “Jeez…this movie is never going to end!” until it did in a beautiful fashion. The film’s final sequence wraps everything up beautifully, and made me shed a few tears. This was the one time the use of the old characters was good, with a perfect match-cut that captured The Losers Club in its prime. While the final sequence is heart-warmingly emotional, the movie does contain a few standout scares (all involving Pennywise) and creative setpieces (the hall of mirrors sequence is fantastic), great performances all-around, particularly from James McAvoy, Isiah Mustafa, Jessica Chastain and, of course, 🅱️est 🅱️oi Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise The Dancing Clown whose performance is scarier and more unpredictable than the first film. It’s a true shame he is underused and many one-off creatures are in place instead of him with cheap jumpscares taking the place of unpredictable scares that made Muschietti’s It so great. This one is a character driven piece that takes way too long to get going and gets lost in its reminiscence of the past. Even though the film is self-aware at the fact that the ending of the book sucks by making Denbrough a screenwriter and having everyone, including Peter Bogdanovich and Stephen King himself, telling him that his endings suck, the final opus of Muschietti’s two-parter doesn’t suck, per se, but is terribly disappointing in its execution and lasting impact. IT’s not that good, but not that bad either.
✯✯✯
