IT Chapter Two Review: A Sequel Which Mildly Entertains!

Directed Andrés Muschietti, IT Chapter Two, the sequel to the 2017 blockbuster film IT, stars Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Skarsgård in the lead roles. The storyline of the movie takes place 27 years after the incidents of the first film. The town of Derry is once again terrified with the presence of Pennywise and the Losers, as promised to each other get back together to get rid of the Clown once and for all.

Related: IT [2017] Review: A Modern Day Horror Classic!

With a soaring runtime of 169 minutes, IT Chapter Two is indeed a long and a lengthy movie to sit through. With a simple premise which has a clear-cut vision from the beginning till the end, the narrative takes us through of time-consuming, unnecessary scenes which extend the film to purposeless proportions. The screenplay written by Gary Dauberman felt very much painted by numbers and conventional. The plot points in the movie, especially when the Losers Club tour around the town individually to find their tokens beared the brunt of a considerable amount of runtime and overall monotony. Additionally, there’s so much more happening in the movie, at times, I found it tough to keep my head wrapped around the storyline.

However, the primary and the most significant aspect of any horror movie should always be the scares. The 2017 film had some decent amount of scares and is overall very well presented when it comes to the build-up and maintaining the legend of Pennywise. So, whenever ‘IT’ acquired any other form the scenes came across as intriguing and at the same time scary to watch. But, in IT Chapter Two, the colourlessness of the same ghosts and the unfrightening presence of Pennywise impaired the entire experience as I didn’t feel agitated even for a single moment.

On the other side, there are a few things in the movie which worked. Starting with the characters, which are to the least had some weight added to them. Moreover, the casting choices of the adult versions of the Losers Club was almost flawless. And the performances from the cast were also on-point. Jessica Chastain, in particular, who plays the older version of Beverly Marsh was impressive as the only female lead in the film. Bill Hader, delivered a standout performance as Richie and is hilarious as far as providing funny one-liners go. James McAvoy didn’t have anything significant to do as his character had a few moments to shine and is not boring to watch at all. Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd, once again steals the show as Pennywise – The Dancing Clown and is enjoyable to watch in every single scene he’s in. 

Technically the movie looked very appealing to my eyes. The production design with reference to designing big sets like the city carnival or the underground sewers where most of the climax takes place turned out to be very ambitious and grand to behold. The visual effects sometimes took the magic away of watching a horror movie most of the time, but, presentation-wise they looked solid for 80 million dollar movie.

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Overall, IT Chapter Two had moments which are entertaining and characters that you can get behind. The flashback and the present day interaction scenes between the Losers Club are heartwarming to watch and probably were the best part of the movie. But, the towering runtime and the not-so-scary horror elements in the film do not do any favors and might disappoint you when you’re probably going in with sky-high expectations. In my opinion, the 2017 film is way better than this 169-minute supernatural horror which at the very least watchable in the movie theaters.