'It: Chapter Two' Is an Enjoyable Horror Movie That Matches Its Predecessor in Quality

How am I just realizing this is the second movie this year to star both James McCoy and Jessica Chastain? Maybe it’s because the first movie was Dark Phoenix, and no one cared about that movie.

Here we go!

It: Chapter Two is a supernatural horror film written by Gary Dauberman and directed by Andy Muschietti. The film is a sequel to the 2017 film, It, and it's based on the novel written by Stephen King.

This movie takes place 27 years after the original, when It begins to wreak havoc on the town of Derry once again, and the Losers, now adults, reassemble in order to try to kill him once and for all.

Now, I'm gonna start off this review the way basically every critic is starting theirs: the cast. The actors they got to portray the older versions of the characters were perfect. They really did a great job of bringing these characters to life as adults.

My favorite casting choices were James Ransone as Eddie and Bill Hader as Richie. Hader steals the show in this movie with a great amount of comic relief and charm, as he really captures the way Richie was in the original film.

He also surprised me with a good amount of drama, because Richie is a pretty complex character. You can see in this movie that he uses humor to hide certain emotions, and there are scenes where we learn a lot more about him and feel pity for him as a result.

As I said earlier, everyone gives great performances, but another standout of the film is Bill Skarsgård, who gives yet another incredibly frightening performance as Pennywise. He's great in this movie, and I liked how this movie went further into the backstory of It.

The CGI elements of this movie looked better than they did in the original It, and I also liked seeing all these characters back together again. The writer and actors really nailed the friendship that these characters have, and it was nice to see the Losers working together as adults.

One thing that surprised me about this movie was the way it referenced other horror films. When you watch this, you may notice homages to The Shining and The Thing, and there's even a reference to Die Hard near the end.

I also want to talk about the film's runtime, because it clocks in at two hours and 49 minutes, and I know that for some people, it's not gonna work, since this is an incredibly long runtime for a horror film.

For me, personally, it was fine. I don't mind long films as long as they can be consistently interesting, and this movie keeps you interested with a good amount of horror sequences, development for the characters, and a surprising amount of levity throughout.

However, this movie isn't perfect by any means. I have some issues, and my biggest issue is the story, which is very simple, and is exactly what you would expect. It's just the Losers getting back together as adults, and trying to beat It. They didn't really do anything special with the story in the second act.

And the second act is, in my opinion, pretty weak. It consists of a series of scenes in which a character visits a place, has a flashback, and It scares them. This happens over and over again to the point where it feels very repetitive, and it never feels like these scenes are actually moving the story forward at all.

There are a few scenes that don't seem to have too much of a point to them, and a scene where Bill, our main character, does something really stupid that he should have known not to do, but he does it anyway for the story's sake. And I didn't care for the "romance" between Bill and Beverly.

It 2 has an incredible amount of flashbacks in it, and not all of them feel necessary to the actual story. And in terms of actual scares, this movie is weaker than the original, because there are a lot of jump scares and some of the tension is removed by the fact that it's scarier to see children in danger than to see adults in danger.

Also, I felt like this movie could have left out the character of Henry Bowers, the psychopathic bully from the first movie. He's in the movie, and I honestly don't know why, because the scenes he's in do not have anything to do with the plot involving It.

Those are my main gripes with the movie, but they didn't bother me too much because even though a lot could be taken out and a lot of the flashbacks and horror sequences don't really build to anything in particular, I still had some fun watching it.

I loved the cast, and I really loved the final act of this movie. I thought it was incredible and it's a pretty watchable movie despite its runtime. To compare it to the original, I think it's around the same level of quality. Not everyone may agree with me on that, but I liked the ideas that this movie had along with most of its execution.

Overall, this movie was good. If you liked the first It, you should enjoy this movie as well, since it connects to the first film in many ways, and I had some fun with this movie, despite the flaws that it had.

I'm gonna give 'It: Chapter Two' an 8/10 (B+).

So... you're telling me that I can only get a shot with Jessica Chastain if I lose 20 pounds and become a hot New Zealand architect? Well, damn. Somebody get me a Fitbit.