The kids are back in school, and Halloween's mere weeks away, so that must mean it's horror movie season. Incredibly it's been two years since director Andy Muschietti's adaptation of It blew the doors off the box office - a genre classic, and a massive success. It's no secret I'm a huge Stephen King admirer, and I absolutely loved the first film, so there was no way I was missing Muschietti's follow-up.
Where the 2017 It focused on the characters as teens, Chapter Two picks up 27 years later, with the older Losers now scattered on the wind, their terror in Derry forgotten, grinding away in adulthood. Only Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) remained in Derry, and when terrible murders begin again, he picks up the phone and starts calling. "You need to come back."
Compared to the young unknown cast of the first film, it's a different experience seeing the characters embodied by name actors. Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader fill the lead roles of Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough and Richie Tozier. It's good casting, and these three do great work inhabiting older incarnations of the characters. Hader is particularly effective as the aggressive comedian of the group. Bill Skarsgård continues to go to phenomenally disturbing and successful extremes as Pennywise. All the ingredients are there - more famous, bigger, longer! But I found those aspects of the picture worked against it, and there were also a few key elements missing.
This time screenwriters Cary Fukunaga and Chase Palmer are not part of the mix, with Gary Dauberman handling things solo. It's a big story with a lot to juggle, and things aren't always handled as deftly as they were in the first film. Likewise, original cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy) has been replaced by Checco Varese, and the shot compositions simply aren't as iconic as in the first film.
Chapter Two begins with a truly awful homophobic assault that King included in his novel after a similar event in Maine that actually occurred. Regardless, the scene is hard to watch and feels equal parts dated and oppressive. This scene is quickly followed by a brutal sequence of Beverly on the receiving end of her husband's domestic violence. In short, the tone starts off pretty bleak and off-putting right out of the gate.
Once the gang has returned to Derry and accepted that their fuzzy memories of the past are returning, the film gains strength. This is a great example of a film with a second act that's much stronger than the first or third. That middle section of the picture is where things are most compelling and the cast really gets a chance to shine. A scene where Beverly has to return to her awful childhood apartment and meet the elderly woman now living there gives Chastain - and the film - some of their best moments. The core of this movie is having to face past trauma and how it's forever damaged you. Adverse Childhood Experiences, indeed. This is where the story uses horror as it's meant to be used, as metaphor to deal with the brutality of life. The various scenes where each of the now-adults must face their past and look it in the face are fantastic, and for the most part extremely well done - for the most part.
The film is way too self-referential, and overflowing with "homages" and clumsy references to other films and even other King works. One effects sequence blatantly cribs an infamous scene from John Carpenter's The Thing, then tosses off the exact accompanying oft-quoted barb of dialogue, just to make things worse. That's not just painful, it's embarrassing.
There seems to have been a desire to make the climactic face-off with Pennywise the biggest, most drawn-out finale in horror history. They definitely succeed on the drawn-out part. It Chapter Two is a behemoth 2 hours and 49 minutes long (compared to the original's 2 and 15), and it feels it. It's easily 40 minutes too long, with a telescoping ending that tries the patience of the audience to a grim - and dimly lit - degree.
I have a huge amount of fondness for the story of It. It reminds me of my childhood friendships to an uncanny degree. I wanted to love Chapter Two, and there are large parts of it where I did. But there were too many long stretches where I just felt detached and depressed by the loudness of the machinery, and the meanness of spirit.
Where the 2017 It focused on the characters as teens, Chapter Two picks up 27 years later, with the older Losers now scattered on the wind, their terror in Derry forgotten, grinding away in adulthood. Only Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) remained in Derry, and when terrible murders begin again, he picks up the phone and starts calling. "You need to come back."
Compared to the young unknown cast of the first film, it's a different experience seeing the characters embodied by name actors. Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader fill the lead roles of Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough and Richie Tozier. It's good casting, and these three do great work inhabiting older incarnations of the characters. Hader is particularly effective as the aggressive comedian of the group. Bill Skarsgård continues to go to phenomenally disturbing and successful extremes as Pennywise. All the ingredients are there - more famous, bigger, longer! But I found those aspects of the picture worked against it, and there were also a few key elements missing.
This time screenwriters Cary Fukunaga and Chase Palmer are not part of the mix, with Gary Dauberman handling things solo. It's a big story with a lot to juggle, and things aren't always handled as deftly as they were in the first film. Likewise, original cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy) has been replaced by Checco Varese, and the shot compositions simply aren't as iconic as in the first film.
Chapter Two begins with a truly awful homophobic assault that King included in his novel after a similar event in Maine that actually occurred. Regardless, the scene is hard to watch and feels equal parts dated and oppressive. This scene is quickly followed by a brutal sequence of Beverly on the receiving end of her husband's domestic violence. In short, the tone starts off pretty bleak and off-putting right out of the gate.
Once the gang has returned to Derry and accepted that their fuzzy memories of the past are returning, the film gains strength. This is a great example of a film with a second act that's much stronger than the first or third. That middle section of the picture is where things are most compelling and the cast really gets a chance to shine. A scene where Beverly has to return to her awful childhood apartment and meet the elderly woman now living there gives Chastain - and the film - some of their best moments. The core of this movie is having to face past trauma and how it's forever damaged you. Adverse Childhood Experiences, indeed. This is where the story uses horror as it's meant to be used, as metaphor to deal with the brutality of life. The various scenes where each of the now-adults must face their past and look it in the face are fantastic, and for the most part extremely well done - for the most part.
The film is way too self-referential, and overflowing with "homages" and clumsy references to other films and even other King works. One effects sequence blatantly cribs an infamous scene from John Carpenter's The Thing, then tosses off the exact accompanying oft-quoted barb of dialogue, just to make things worse. That's not just painful, it's embarrassing.
There seems to have been a desire to make the climactic face-off with Pennywise the biggest, most drawn-out finale in horror history. They definitely succeed on the drawn-out part. It Chapter Two is a behemoth 2 hours and 49 minutes long (compared to the original's 2 and 15), and it feels it. It's easily 40 minutes too long, with a telescoping ending that tries the patience of the audience to a grim - and dimly lit - degree.
I have a huge amount of fondness for the story of It. It reminds me of my childhood friendships to an uncanny degree. I wanted to love Chapter Two, and there are large parts of it where I did. But there were too many long stretches where I just felt detached and depressed by the loudness of the machinery, and the meanness of spirit.
Posts
