It: Chapter II
Fantasy Horror / English / 2019
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
While my review for
It (2017) wasn't stellar, I did consider the remake of
It to be on the better side of horror movies, so I might as well see the sequel.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
“Just trying to add some levity to this shit. I’ll go **** myself.”
Without reading through my review of the first movie and without trying to be too consistent with my judgment of it, my memory of the first movie (which I apparently saw in 2019) was that it was an adequately creepy movie, which some pretty cool effects, a couple funny moments, and an especially charismatic clown antagonist.
Seeing Pennywise chew more scenery seemed like a good enough reason to see this one, but it was not the reason I enjoyed it.
Again, going off of memory, I feel like the previous movie was overtly preoccupied with setting up the characters, building up the friend group, and ****in' about with Stephen King tropes, like Main Girl's alcoholic abusive dad.
This movie, by contrast, seems eager to jump us right back into the hallucinatory terrain that comprises the creepy setpieces, but it also has to juggle this with the bold task of reintroducing the cast in the form of different actors, while also making their individual personalities and mannerisms natural and distinct enough for us to go, "OH, THAT'S THAT KID BUT 27 YEARS OLDER, WHOA".
I'd LIKE to say that it succeeded because by the end of the movie it was clear to me who was trying to be who, and each version of the characters share enough of the other's personality and look that the new casting seems pretty solid. This of course is helped by an abundance of seamless flashbacks to scenes of the original child actors between the events of the previous movie and this one, but I would be lying if I wasn't pretty confused out of the gate by who was supposed to be who.
It would probably help if I had watched both movies back to back, but I didn't.
I feel like it's enough to say that each of the characters had distinguishing personalities since that's a pretty tall order normally for horror movies, but they were pretty likable too. If the previous movie's humor has carried by the comedy relief character, it feels much more organic here, where it's more about the character's personalities bouncing off each other, as any good ensemble cast should.
It also helps that the writers are clearly self-aware since they went so far as to squeeze a "HEEERE'S JOHNNEY!" meme in the middle of things. I appreciate it, but it really did feel like the plot took a couple trips and falls around the middle bit.
In particular, once the characters are prescribed the contrived solution to their clown problem of collecting a "token" for each of them, a requirement that came with virtually no rationalization, it seemed like we'd get to see each of the characters experience their own little unique trial tailored to their character.
That would be cool and that seemed like the direction they were going before they bailed out of that idea super hard. Main Girl digs out a postcard that was meaningful to her from the wall of her old home only to have the current resident creepily veer into a Monster Boob Lady...
That set the bar pretty high. The tone, the thoughtfulness, the slow burn into the freaky shit, it works.
But then Comedy Relief gets his scene which involves remembering he used to play Street Fighter, buying an arcade token, and then flashing back to getting chased by a giant woodsman mascot before fast forwarding to a much better less stupid scene where Pennywise just taunts him about "knowing his secret", which doesn't seem to be anything the movie ever reveals.
Main Girl's token was so personal, and the setting was important to the previous movie. Comedy Relief just has a stupid coin because "bro, video games".
This tonal inconsistency continues long enough for me to wonder whether everyone just forgot they were supposed to collect a token each to begin with.
When they finally decide to go have their showdown, they have their epic "let's go kill his ****ing clown" moment, but then bring FEWER weapons than they did 27 years previously.
AND they split up exactly as they did before and get jumpscared by fridge again, only this time it's the spider thing from
The Thing inside, and not a cool body contortion effect on Pennywise.
Finally they're like "everyone present your tokens" and Hypochondriac Guy tosses in his inhaler. Yeah, okay, we're not even trying here. They even toss in a shower cap for the one character that killed themselves in a flashback to a throwaway joke that wasn't even in the original movie.
There are a few funny moments throughout, but I think the best bit is the moment when Comedy Relief gets insta-hypnotized by "The Deadlights" mid-monologue during the final showdown.
The final showdown overall is honestly underwhelming. Pennywise finally takes the "true spider form" as represented in the original miniseries, but it feels like it takes forever for the characters to remember he feeds off of fear and that he's completely powerless if you just bully him. Killing him when he's deflated like a balloon is appropriately thematic, but it's also anti-climactic.
The movie after being far too unsubtle about wanting a stupid romantic subplot between Main Girl and Formerly Fat Kid gives them their underwater kiss scene that was so necessary for no reason, we get a fluffy monologue about nothing and the movie ends.
Overall, I'd say the strongest part of this entire movie, surprisingly, are the transitions. CGI occasionally fluctuates from very good to noticeable, therefor bad, but there's also a decent amount of practical effects... which only seem to show up on the tertiary monsters.
What the hell is a mummy doing in this movie anyway?
But no, the transitions are frequent, creative, and not obnoxious. For instance, there's a pan up to the sky, which zooms into stars which are revealed to be the underside of a puzzle being completed, that's pretty cool. I've definitely never seen any movie do that before.
Just for the sheer abundance of quality scene transitions, I would recommend this movie alongside
Cloud Atlas because it does one moviemaking job really well. But otherwise don't watch
Cloud Atlas.
It: Chapter II on the other hand pretty good at the best of times. It's spooky, but also intermittently funny, has some neat special effects, and the cast is actually a genuinely good likable cast, which you almost never get in horror movies.
I do think overall the setpieces revolving around Pennywise are weaker than in the first movie though. He's given less time to monologue and serve up the creep and these scenes will not be as memorable as those in the first movie.
My BIGGEST qualm with the whole movie, is the opening kill.
For literally no reason at all, the writers of this movie decided to that Pennywise's big "I'm Back" moment would be taking a bite out of a flamboyant gay guy.
Which doesn't seem so bad, I wish all horror movie victims were flamboyant gay guys because those
people are so unbelievably ****ing annoying. But no, the reason why Pennywise kills the gay guy is because he's spotted kissing his boyfriend by Stephen King-style tryhard bullies who are momentarily distracted from posting alt-right memes on /pol/ long enough to
Brokeback Mountain his ass until they run out of blood squibs and attempt to murder him by dumping his body off a bridge.
And these characters (and themes) are never reincorporated back into the story in any way whatsoever.
Compare this to Georgie's death scene, that was the impetus for the entire plot of the first movie. But here they're just like "we need Pennywise to kill someone, but as long as we're killing someone, let's cram in a little elbowing about how gay people are such an oppressed minority that intolerant dudebros will kill them in the streets". As though they didn't push the setting of this movie up to the year
2016, the year progressives where so unbelievably out of touch with reality that they inadvertently got Donald Trump elected.
If this released in 2020 you can bet it'd be another token black character getting beasted by evil police officers for crime of existing.
Ironically, Token Black Guy seems to have received the least character development of anybody in the main cast. They constantly refer to some subplot about him being accused of arson from the first movie, but I don't remember that ever being resolved in the first movie either. Didn't they casually insinuate that his family were drug dealers, presumably because he's
the token black character from
the token black family?
Also isn't Main Girl fresh out of an abusive relationship with her dad and now suddenly in an abusive relationship with a spouse she only just decided to leave because she got a letter about some bullshit in Maine? Everyone else received an equitable amount of bullying, but she's privileged with having both a traumatic backstory and
frontstory. And it's really just a coin-toss in the end that she ends up with the Fat Kid and not McStuttersalot.
Stephen King cameos in this movie, so I assume his seal of approval is on this, but if so, what is the value in dramatizing the struggles of token women, black, and gay characters if you're really not going to do anything meaningful with them? Just sounds like you needed a plot device and decided you could virtue signal at the same time.
Final Verdict: [Good]