Stars: 3/5
“For 27 years, I dreamt of you. I craved you… I’ve missed you!”
It’s been 27 years since the Losers Club first faced off against the horrifying Pennywise, a dancing clown with a love of red balloons and a taste for human flesh, and made their promise to return to the small town of Derry, Maine, if the frightening presence ever reared its ugly head again.
Now, haunted by the events of the past, yet unable to recall exactly what happened in their childhood, Bill, Richie, Stanley, Eddie, Beverly, and Ben all receive a call from Mike, who remained in Derry for those 27 years. He confirms the Losers’ worst nightmare: Pennywise is back, and he’s bigger and more dangerous than ever before.
Unfortunately, in the case of, “It: Chapter 2,” bigger is not always better, as the nearly 3-hour runtime of the film results in an overblown, bloated sequel with a weak sense of pacing and a meandering story. Despite this, an incredible cast and some truly incredible sequences of horror filmmaking elevate, “It: Chapter 2,” above your standard horror fare, and concludes the tale of Pennywise the Dancing Clown in a somewhat satisfying way.
The first “It” (2017) benefited from the incredible cast of child actors, a sense of childhood wonder and 80s nostalgia pop culture obsesses over. Luckily, the cast of the sequel is just as strong and makes a sturdy case for a new category of award in the way of casting director.
Each actor perfectly captures the essence of the character established by their younger counterparts, and the frequent flashbacks between the children and adults made me suspicious that director Andy Muschietti has a time machine somewhere in his basement.
Just as Finn Wolfhard was a standout as the character in the original, Bill Hader absolutely shines as Richie Tozier, combining a sense of sarcastic humor and deep emotional trauma in a performance truly worthy of every award you can throw at it.
It also cannot be overstated how iconic Bill Skarsgård is as Pennywise. Tim Curry created what many thought was the definitive version of the character in the 1990 miniseries, yet Skarsgård crafts a performance that perfectly captures both the childhood pain and terrifying hunger that IS Pennywise.
There are also some truly incredible moments of horror filmmaking on display here. Muschietti fine tunes the sense of increasing dread he had already expertly displayed with the first film and creates some moments that sent goosebumps up and down my arms.
From a rotting and disturbingly-tall old woman, to a Paul Bunyun statue coming to life, to the ever-terrifying saliva-dripping grin and floating eyes of Pennywise, several sequences had me squeezing the armrests of my theater chair a little tighter than I anticipated.
One particular sequence involving an innocent little girl and a firefly might be one of my favorite scenes of the year and displayed just what made Pennywise so terrifying and powerful to begin with.
Unfortunately, where the film struggles is in the placement of these excellent scares and the general construction of the film’s plot. Particularly in the second act, the film proves to be an exercise in excess as the characters separate to explore the holes in the story between chapters one and two.
It felt as though many times the film was simply being scary to be scary, and the nearly three-hour-long movie suffers from too much of a good thing. Each individual scene is scary, and the horror is incredibly well acted, shot, and constructed. However, when five scenes in a row felt copied and pasted in the script, just with different characters, it proves to be a little repetitive.
The lull in pacing in the second act is a darn shame because the film opens with an incredibly brutal and effective sequence, re-introducing the horror that is not just Pennywise, but the town of Derry as a whole, via an attack on a gay couple.
The re-introduction of every character, as well as their meeting at a Chinese restaurant, makes for some of the best moments of the entire film. The conclusion also brings a sense of epic finality, calling upon an emotional point in me I did not expect.
It’s just that the second act, which makes up for maybe an hour and 15 minutes of the film, is such a drag. Part of it may simply be that following the adult Losers is not nearly as fun or interesting as following their younger, more innocent childhood years (I have not read the novel, but that has been the case for both the 1990 miniseries and the new films).
At the end of the day, “It: Chapter 2,” has a fantastic cast, some truly horrifying and heart-wrenching moments, and concludes the tale of Pennywise in a satisfying way. The journey to get there, however, was filled with repetitive scenes, a meandering plot, and an incredibly harsh lull in pacing. Still, the film is absolutely worth a visit to the theater because, after all, we all float down here.
