by Praise was high when Stephen King’s IT returned to cinemas in 2017 making use of latest special effects and cinematic trends. Split in two parts, the wheel wasn’t reinvented for the first half, that delivered good scares and a different, yet uncanny approach to Pennywise. Still, the TV-production shot in 1990 wasn’t wiped off the collective memory. So the stakes were even higher for CHAPTER TWO, that’s drawn-out to almost three hours. Unfortunately, it failed to amaze.
After the first part centered on the Losers encounter with It while still children without jumping to or from their adult lives, part two doesn’t follow this patters. This already gives the film a strange smack of inconsistency. What’s worse is that none of the flashbacks to childhood life adds anything of value that hasn’t been shown in the first film. To break it down, Muschietti in essence made the same film again. The characters, while altered in the book and in the first adaptation when grown up, are exactly the same persons, if portrayed by a talented cast, that never fool anyone into believing they’d changed. It is true that the cast is CHAPTER TWO’s asset, But then what is a talented cast without good direction or a suited script? As the film drags on, even the actors seem to lose interest.
Only in comparison it is evident how well-written Cary Fukunaga’ s script for the first part was. Evidently, the first part was already long, but it never showed us the same things two, three times without purpose. Fukunaga knew what to focus on and what to omit. CHAPTER TWO has such a weak script that bumbles about, sometimes seemingly aimlessly, picking scenes from the novel that made sense in its broader, epic context but fail on screen. Readers of Stephen King’s masterpiece recognize many of the events particularly out of the Losers childhood summer of horror, wondering what they added to the film. And with Paul Bunyan hunting Richie Tozier, both direction and special effects unmask themselves as utter disappointment.
So it isn’t in the forced humor with its weak punch lines, that CHAPTER TWO disappoints the most. This is a horror feature after all, one that’s so over-produced and overthought and even over-self-indulgent that the oldest and simplest rule of horror is forgotten: what you don’t see is scariest. F. W. Murnau knew this when he shot NOSFERATU(1922). Scott knew this when he did the classic ALIEN (1979). Muschietti obviously never heard of this rule. And it’s indeed a sacred cow. Even in the first film we saw just a bit too much of Pennywise, but here it’s worse. Fans of the novel probably cheer when the film opens with the murder of Adrian Mellon, but the cheers certainly mute quickly. The scene feels ten minutes too long and Pennywise isn’t scary. It gets worse when he tricks and eats children always in the same, old fashion. The horror is plain, it lacks nuances. Consequently, Pennywise turns into just another plain character, just like everyone else in the film, that learned nothing and certainly has nothing new to say. Yes, indeed: he’s just a clown.
Come back and play! COME BACK AND PLAY WITH THE CLOWN!!
Pennywise
Jump scares are deployed in abundance. Add to that the shapeshifter Pennywise fails to impress in either of his disguises, plus the fact that everything is repeated and literally takes forever. There is no balance in how shortcuts are taken at the wrong time, while subplots vital to the story are either left out or addressed insufficiently, with events supposed to develop characters drawn-out until void. By the time the Losers descend into the gutters to face Pennywise, your watch’s indiglo bled the batteries significantly. The Ritual of Chüd is yet another disappointment. A better screenwriter like Fukunaga might have reinvented the ritual or made it more engaging. But this is yet again the simple way out. A Native American tribe somehow and inexplicably figured out how to kill Pennywise, yet neither of the character wonder why the clown would still be around if it actually worked. Then they have to fight him the old-fashioned way, which isn’t exciting at all thanks to a lack of creativity. When they emerge from the house on Neibolt Street, nothing really makes sense. Which isn’t such of a problem, though, since we haven’t been given much to care about in almost three hours.
IT: CHAPTER TWO had all the ingredients to become a worthy and satisfying addition to the first film. But what would you think of a successor that, in several instances, references its predecessor as if to admit it could by no means compete with it? As a double feature, this new adaptation of It is too long to please and the second part just doesn’t work. This is all the more surprising if you consider the great cast at work. Those that enjoyed the first film with Fukunaga’s beautiful script should skip CHAPTER TWO. And those that aren’t averse to watching older films should watch the miniseries by Tommy Lee Wallace, that stays true to King’s novel and tells a complete story in about the time it takes Muschietti to mess up CHAPTER TWO.
