IT: Chapter 2 (2019) Review

 IT Chapter 2 (2019) 8/10

Hello everyone and welcome back to another movie review. Today, I’ll be going over the second IT movie. IT Chapter 2 was released on September 6, 2019 with the director being Andy Muschietti, who did the first movie. Back when I originally watched this, I didn’t really enjoy it for whatever reason. Like, I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but not as much as I originally thought I would. Rewatching this now, it’s a good movie, but still not as good as the first. Let’s begin.

27 years after the events of the first movie, Pennywise returns from his slumber to continue his feast on the citizens of Derry. Mike, who has been living in Derry all this time to monitor Pennywise, sees that he has returned. Abiding by the promise that the gang made when they were young, Mike calls up everyone to kill IT permanently. Bill has become a movie writer, Ben lost a shit ton of weight and is an architect, Beverly married into an abusive relationship, Eddie works for an insurance company, Richie does stand-up comedy, and Stanley left Judaism and got married. After meeting up at a Chinese restaurant and getting together, the group starts to remember their childhood and all of their memories. Apparently when you leave Derry, all your memories of Derry start to fade and you can only remember them when you return. Mike explains that in order to defeat Pennywise and kill him, the gang has to recover an artifact from their time in Derry that’s dear to them and perform a ritual that’ll summon Pennywise in his true form. Only then will the gang have a chance to kill him. I’d like to get into the details of the story a bit more, but I’d rather not spoil it.

This is a great conclusion to the story. I love the progression and development that the characters went through and all the loose ends were tied up. I like how the movie goes into Pennywise’s origins and how he first got to Derry. It even goes into one of his first encounters with the natives hundreds of years ago. The characters themselves are still very relatable and I love the struggles they went through. I love all the characters equally.

Despite what I said, this movie could’ve been better. Yes, it’s satisfactory. But I felt that there were some pacing issues in the middle of the movie as well as during the final encounter. In the middle of the film, the gang will separate to find their tokens for the ritual. During this time, each one will get a scene where they reminisce a piece of their childhood and then Pennywise fucks with them. This will repeat 6-7 times, going over each character. On one hand, it was cool to see the characters get some development and even some closure, but I feel like doing these scenes in a copy/pasted manner wasn’t the best idea.

This movie wasn’t exactly scary either (probably because I already knew where the scares would be). A bit creepy and unsettling, but I felt that this movie was more about the conclusion of the story instead of the scare factor. A part of me appreciates this, but at the same time I felt that these scary scenes could’ve been done better. I found it more entertaining seeing Pennywise come up with creative ways to fuck with them than I actually found them scary. But, let’s not coat all of these scenes as bad. Right before the final encounter where Bill races to the fair to save that one kid. That whole scene in the glass maze was a bit terrifying. Seeing Bill struggle and be helpless to Pennywise’s wrath was done very well. This and the whole thing with Stanely’s head coming out of the fridge at the well house was also done very well.

One final thing I want to go over story wise. I love how the movie constantly rips on Stephen King as the original book didn’t have the greatest ending. Idk if the ending was changed/fixed for this movie, but I found it to be satisfactory. But yeah, constantly bringing up the “the ending was terrible” schtick was hilarious.

The acting for this was fantastic. All the child actors from the previous movie were all great. Special shout out to James McAvoy (Bill), Bill Hader (Richie), James Ransone (Eddie), Isaiah Mustafa (Mike) and Bill Skarsgård (Pennywise). They were the best performances. Everyone else was great too, but these were the best.

I love the film’s setting too. Everything was kept up to such a high quality just like the last movie. Derry looked great, the set designs (such as the school, library, Chinese restaurant, the well house, the carnival, etc.) all looked good. I know a good portion of these was done with CG, but still. It all looks good. The VFX were all great too. Pennywise (in all of his monstrous forms) all looked fantastic. The way Stanley’s head looked in that scene I mentioned earlier looked great as well. It actually looked like they decapitated Wyatt Olef’s head lmao.

Music is pretty great too. Same high quality, spooky background music that’s in the first movie. Benjamin Wallfisch did an excellent job here. I especially loved the music during the end credits. Also, one thing I noticed after I finished the film, and this reminded me of The Last of Us, was the restraint of the music. The score is great, but it only hit so well because it only popped in at the perfect moments. There were no unnecessary, intense building violins (you know exactly which ones I’m talking about lol). The music hit so well because of how it was utilized. I don’t mention this aspect of music direction too often, but it’s always nice to point it out from time to time.

Overall, this is a great conclusion to this story. My only issues with the movie are the pacing issues in the middle and that the horror/scary sections could’ve been better. The story is great, the casting and acting are great, setting and tone is fantastic, and the music hits hard. If you enjoyed the first movie and were hesitant about this film for whatever reason, go watch it. This is a long movie, with the film clocking in at almost 3 hours long, but it’s worth it. Until my next review, stay safe out.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.