The release and somewhat unexpected success of Andy Muschietti’s 2017 remake of It started a wave of sorts of Stephen King adaptations. Not that we’ve had any shortage of them in the past, but there seems to be an ignited public interest in re-imagining his classics since the Loser’s Club reassembled on the big screen. I’ve been a casual fan of King’s work, so this has been an exciting time for me, despite the missteps. It was this success and renewed interest that made it no surprise that the studio would fast-track a somewhat star-studded sequel to cash in on the hype.
Unsurprisingly, the entirety of King’s massive 1,100-page novel could not be contained in a single feature film, which is why the original 1990 adaptation opted instead for a TV miniseries. Likewise, Muschietti followed suit and split out the adult-centric conclusion into It: Chapter Two. This split, while seemingly inevitable, leads to some interesting tonal inconsistencies between the two halves. Inconsistencies that bring to light how little faith Warner Brothers may have had in the success of the first film and their mad scramble to find a way to adapt some of the more outlandish and cosmic aspects of the novel into the conclusion.
It: Chapter Two picks up 27-years after the end of the first film, with the Loser’s Club scattered to the wind in their adult lives. After events in present day (or, 2016) Derry suggest the return of It, Mike (Isaiah Mustafa, possibly recognized as the “Old Spice guy”) calls everyone back home to put an end to the beast for good. A good chunk of the story deals with the crew struggling to recollect exactly what happened that fateful summer in 1989, gathering memories they can use as ammunition against It.
My main issue with Chapter Two is that even at it’s bloated runtime of 169 minutes, things still feel overstuffed and rushed. After thinking long and hard about why this might be, the most logical conclusion I can come to is that a lot was cut from the first film to make it more palatable for mainstream audiences. When it came time to make the sequel, in order to stay even remotely faithful to the novel, plot points needed to be awkwardly stitched back in. Instead of getting setups from the first paid off in the sequel, we get both in the sequel, which ends up feeling very unsatisfying. It’s possible that me having read the novel and knowing how things play out there has influenced my thoughts on the matter, but I also think it would’ve objectively made for a smoother storytelling experience to break up some of the exposition over both movies.
Despite the issues with pacing and information overload that comes from the aforementioned plot reconstruction, It: Chapter Two is still a relatively competent horror-adventure movie. It does not shy away from moments of extreme violence and some genuinely upsetting scares. Even with such a large cast that includes James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, and a returning Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise, it feels like everyone gets their due amount of screen time and does a good enough job with what they have. The standout, in my opinion, is Bill Hader as a grown-up Richie, the known motormouth and jokester of the club. It’s in Richie’s character to respond to nearly every conversation with a joke or quip to the point where it starts to grate on the others and audience alike, but Hader brings enough charm to the character that it never really becomes tiring.
All-in-all, It: Chapter Two is a serviceable sequel to what I consider one of the better mainstream horror movies in recent time. Sure, it had to atone for some of the missteps of the first for the sake of the overarching narrative, but it handles things with relative finesse given the hole it had to climb out of. There is a lot more personal drama going on here, but that doesn’t mean it skimps on the scares. It should be a no-brainer for fans of the first to seek out Chapter Two.
7/10