Review: IT: Chapter Two

It’s 27 years later, and Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) reunites his childhood ‘Losers Club’ friends to deal with their past trauma: IT has returned to Derry. The other grown versions of the characters are played by James McAvoy (Bill), Jessica Chastain (Beverly), Jay Ryan (Ben), Bill Hader (Richie), James Ransone (Eddie), and Andy Bean (Stanley). Bill Skarsgard returns as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the most prominent visual manifestation of IT.

 

I was the one guy who actively disliked the 2017 adaptation of the Stephen King epic tome. Yes, I was very much loyal to the 1990 TV miniseries (and Tim Curry’s equally terrifying and hilarious Pennywise), but it was more than that. I honestly thought it was a pretty badly made film. The horror elements were especially hokey, with poor Bill Skarsgard failing to produce a single goosebump with his far too CGI-assisted, infantile interpretation of Pennywise. It was also repetitive, overblown, and just plain overrated. I did like young Jake Dylan Grazer as Eddie though, and that bit with the bloody sink.

 

Well, now here’s the 2019 follow-up from director Andy Muschietti and adapter Gary Dauberman (the folks behind the first instalment, of course), focussing primarily with the 27 year reunion and climax of King’s novel. In fact, it’s quite similar in story to the final half of the miniseries, just with a few minor character trait switcheroos and a better climax. The result is…slightly better, but still very, very far from being a good film and for a lot of the same reasons.

 

I get the feeling it’s likely not in the book, but the opening scene here is really effective stuff. So we got off to a good start here. The casting of the grown up ‘Loser’s Club’ is hit and miss. Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, and James McAvoy are all appropriately cast as Beverly, Richie, and Bill respectively, even if Richard Thomas was a more believable stutterer than McAvoy. Whilst he’s no master thespian, Isaiah Mustafa (forever known as ‘The Old Spice’ guy) is an interesting and solid choice for grown-up Mike. I would never have thought of him for this part, but he’s solid. I liked the idea that the further these characters got away from Derry, the more easily they forgot about the childhood trauma. That was a really nice touch that I don’t think the miniseries handled quite as well.

 

I was less sold on James Ransone, and especially Kiwi-born hunk Jay Ryan as, respectively, grown-up Eddie and Ben. Ransone at least looks a lot like his younger counterpart, Grazer. However, I found him a bit of a stretch as Eddie, so memorably played by a worried-looking Dennis Christopher in the miniseries. Ransone gets the worried expression down pat, but seemed otherwise miscast and too loud as a grown-up version of the fragile hypochondriac mummy’s boy (Unlike the book or miniseries, Eddie grows up to be a risk assessor here, which is just a tad too cute for me). He’s not terrible, but I just wasn’t buying this grown-up Eddie, whether it’s Ransone’s fault or more likely the screenplay. Jay Ryan is just flat-out wrong as Ben, the film going too far in transforming the former child ‘fatty’ into a soap opera hunk (Literally, Ryan played Jack Scully for three years on the long-running Aussie soap “Neighbours”). Also, more importantly, his performance is entirely flat and uninteresting. Ryan’s a mediocre actor, and stands out like a sore thumb amongst much, much better performers. Also standing out like a sore thumb is the fact that 38 year-old Ryan is clearly younger than his co-stars. They’re all 40+ (Mustafa being 46 if I’m not mistaken), and he looks younger than 38 to be honest. It’s distracting, especially given they’re all supposed to be the same age. I did get a kick out of the cameo by Brandon Crane, who played young Ben in the miniseries and more importantly to me, played perennial third wheel Doug Porter on “The Wonder Years” (Also, look out for Peter Bogdanovich early on with McAvoy. Why is Peter Bogdanovich here? I don’t care, it’s Peter Bogdanovich and he’s always welcome on my screen). As I said earlier, James McAvoy isn’t a convincing stutterer but he is definitely a convincing Bill. He’s immediately right for the part. I’ve never been a fan of Jessica Chastain, but she fits the bill just fine even if Amy Adams would’ve been the obvious casting choice in my opinion (Perhaps a little too obvious given Lillis played a young Adams on “Sharp Objects”). I have to say, despite Chastain and McAvoy’s best efforts, the whole Bill/Beverly/Ben love triangle was handled a bit better in the miniseries (As with the previous film, it’s impossible for me not to go back to the miniseries. It was one of the first horror-themed things I ever watched).

 

The best casting in the entire film is obviously Bill Hader as the grown-up Richie. Seriously, it’s not even a close contest, Hader walks off with the film easily. I liked Harry Anderson a lot in the miniseries, but Hader gets to play Richie with a bit more heart and depth, and Hader knocks it out of the park. As for the child actors, they don’t get as much screen time here, so the only one who really stands out here is Sophia Lillis. If anything is fair in this world, I really think the Amy Adams-lookalike is a star in the making. She makes her minutes count in this one.

 

I really enjoyed the music score by Benjamin Wallfisch (“Hidden Figures”, “A Cure for Wellness”, “IT”), though I still prefer the score from the miniseries just a tad. As for the horror and FX scenes, the highlight is the fortune cookie bit, with much more convincing FX than in the miniseries and it’s hilarious and brilliant. Outside of that, the best I can say is that what helps this film work a bit better than the previous instalment is that there’s not as much emphasis on horror this time around. When we do get horror, it falls just as flat as last time, including once again a not very frightening or effective characterisation of Pennywise the Dancing Clown/IT by Bill Skarsgard and the FX team. I’m sorry, but I just prefer Tim Curry, white facepaint and some pretty ugly prosthetic teeth to the all-too obvious computer FX we get from Bill Skarsgard’s version of the character. You’re all-too aware that you’re watching computer graphics, whereas with the miniseries, you were seeing an actual physical being, albeit a human in makeup and clown outfit, and then a crap giant spider at the climax. Skarsgard’s best moment is actually the random bit where a sans-makeup Skarsgard masquerades as Beverly’s dad. It’s the closest the guy gets to being creepy and he didn’t need makeup to do it. I don’t know who came up with the idea, but directly stealing from the “Elm Street” series by having a character’s chest carved with a message didn’t impress me one bit. That was pretty unnecessary, methinks (is it in the book?) as was Stan pretty much re-enacting a special FX scene from John Carpenter’s overrated remake of “The Thing”. The Mrs. Kersch scene was another really stupid FX/horror moment as well (The miniseries did it better, despite much less of a budget). The nadir is the absolutely awful FX work on whatever the fuck that Native American/peyote-induced dream sequence bullshit with Mike was. I guess we should be thankful that we don’t get the giant turtle thing from the book, but seriously I have no idea what that Native American stuff was doing here except that it’s apparently in King’s novel. Fair enough, but it definitely didn’t work on screen here (Don’t even get me started on the lumberjack statue. Please don’t get me started on that). There’s a couple of positives with the title character, as we actually get to see Pennywise/IT kinda sorta eating children which is certainly memorably disgusting. If you’re gonna have the character be a child-eating monster, you’ve kinda gotta show us that, right? Also, the climax is certainly better handled than the miniseries and its inadequate spider ‘special’ effect. It’s not as good as the fortune cookies from an FX point of view and the climax is always gonna be a bit of a letdown since even the biggest King diehard must confess that the finale isn’t all that great after all the build-up. It’s still just a giant spider, no matter whether it’s in literary form, TV miniseries, or this film. It can’t help but be a bit of a letdown. However, it’s still a much better-realised version of the climax than poor Tommy Lee Wallace was afforded for the budget of the miniseries. For starters, it blends a giant spider with the clown facet of the character, giving more of a connection between the two, which I think really helps. ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** I absolutely loved the idea of IT shrivelling up and becoming pitiful and pathetic. That was a really clever idea, though it’s somewhat ruined by the bad, baby-voiced acting of Skarsgard. Ugh, he overdoes it. ***** END SPOILER *****

 

Better than the previous film, but still a long way from being a good film. Some of the performances work, but I’ll stick to the 1990 miniseries. If you liked the previous film, you’ll probably feel fairly warmly towards this one too. It’s just not for me, especially not with the phony CGI and lame ‘jump’ scares. Sorry, but this is… #NotMyPennywise.

 

Rating: C