Review: IT Chapter Two

Twenty Seven years after their encounter with Pennywise, the Losers have to return to Derry to confront IT once more…

When I wrote my review of IT Chapter One (review here ) I said the one caveat I had about that film, was that until we saw IT Chapter Two, we wouldn’t know if they had pulled the adaptation off. Chapter One was a great film, but it needed Chapter Two to work to complete the story. So let’s start there. Have they done it? Have they pulled it off?

The answer is yes…but with some issues.

While Chapter One focused on the story of the Loser’s club confronting Pennywise, Chapter Two tells the story of their return as adults years later when Pennywise returns. The film opens with a brutal homophobic attack, where the victim of the attack, is then killed by Pennywise, heralding his return. The only member of the Loser’s club still living in Derry, then contacts the others to tell them to return.

And this scene is one of the first problems for me. The TV adaptation from 1990 was a solid, if now slightly dated take on the novel and some have compared that version to these new films. It’s unfair to compare both really, but I do think the introduction of the adults in the TV version is done better there. In that version, they get flashes of their past as it begins to return (something they’ve forgotten since leaving Derry). Here, once they receive the call, they drop everything to return, as if it’s all come back to them, or most of it. But it feels rushed.

When they do return and discover that they need to revisit their own past, to remember something they’ve forgotten. What then follows is a series of scenes of them as children recalling an event/confrontation with Pennywise…followed immediately by a new encounter as an adult. As this happens to each of them, while each one is unique to each one, it does have a repetitive feel to it, even if they often do have effective scary moments.

There have been changes made to the story, ones that I do think weaken the film a little. Bill’s wife, Audra has a role to play in the book, but here is only in an early scene. Henry Bowers returns but again, he plays a bigger role in the book than he does here. I suspect that screenwriter Gary Dauberman (who co-wrote Chapter One and many of The Conjuring spin-off films) and director Andy Muschietti wanted the story to focus on the Loser’s only.

While the younger loser cast are all back (Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs and Jeremy Ray Taylor), it’s clear they have aged and grown since Chapter One and they’ve had to use CGI to de-age them and not always successfully. But as in the first film all their performances are good.

The adult losers are played by Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Andy Bean and they too are really good, with Hader and Ransone being the stand outs.

Bill Skarsgard returns as Pennywise and he has changed, he’s meaner, crueller than before. A scene, hinted at in the trailer, with a little girl, is horrific as is a later sequence with Bill trying to save a boy from him. While there was, to a degree, an evil playfulness to Pennywise in Chapter One, here he/IT is unrestrained.

Director Andy Muschietti really pulls out all the stop with the set pieces, from Beverly returning to he old home, to Eddie revisiting the pharmacy he went as a child, to Richie being confronted by Pennywise in the town square. They are well staged and the jump scares are done well indeed.

In the final act, as the Losers confront Pennywise for the final time, Muschietti really goes for it. The ending of the book is one that is often cited as King having issues finishing his stories well. The TV version’s ending worked to a point, but has dated badly. Here’ the ending does veer close to an overblown one, a flaw a number of horror films suffers from. There’s also a bit of humour in their that adds as a contrast to the scares.

It has to be said, the film also, for whatever reason, has a scene that is a homage to one of the greatest scenes in horror history. Not sure why it’s there but I did smile at it.

Like Chapter One, the film has a low key ending, where a final wrinkle is added to the story, which I’m not sure fully works, in relation to one of the Loser’s actions. That said, the final moments are well done, giving the film a nice, satisfying ending.

The score from Benjamin Wallfisch is good, the design is great and the film is well shot by Checco Varese. All the cast and crew involved in both films deserve credit for what they have pulled off.

It’s not as good as Chapter One, but that’s not to say Chapter Two is a bad one. It’s a longer film than the first, in part as it has to deal with Loser’s both young and old, but it doesn’t feel like one. IT does race through its running time.

So, ultimately, has it worked? Have they made a good adaptation of King’s novel in two films? I think they have. IT Chapter Two brings the story to a worthy conclusion.

And one well worth seeing.

Rating: ***1/2 out of 5