IT CHAPTER 2 - Back Home in Derry

Short version: Yes, the movie really is nearly 3 hours long. No, It Chapter 2 is not as good as 2017's It. Yes, it's still worth seeing if you liked that film at all.

Longer version? Well, for one, I'm kinda shocked this works at all...

Part of the reason that Andy Muschietti's first "half" of adapting Stephen King's landmark horror novel was so effective was that It chose to focus on the childhood-era section of the book and be solely about a group of outcast kids coming together to fight a monster in their town when no one else would help. It was able to excise a lot of the background exposition about the town and demon/clown/eldritch horror Pennywise's origins, the flashback/present-day structure involving the adult versions of the Loser's Club, and the amnesia and ritual business leading into an ultimate confrontation that, well, doesn't always stick the landing.

So, of course Muschietti's sequel has to tackle all that stuff while also trying to visualize material that only kinda worked on the page in the first place.

Luckily, It 2 has a very solid foundation to build on - not only is Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise still absolutely iconic among horror villains, but the returning Losers (Jaeden Martell's Bill, Sophia Lillis' Beverly, Jeremy Ray Taylor's Ben, Finn Wolfhard's Richie, Jackie Dylan Grazer's Eddie, Chosen Jacobs' Mike, and Wyatt Oleff's Stan) are on hand for flashbacks to the fateful summer of '89 that allows them to flex their still-impressive acting muscles separately while also slipping back into their group chemistry that the film skillfully edits into the modern-day timeline to allow the adult bonds to feel tight without having as much time to coalesce. The adult cast (James MacAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Bill Hader, James Ransone, Isiah Mustafa, and Andy Bean, respectively) is absolute dynamite, and if they don't get to spend as much (or, in one case, any) time with their group, they ably convey the chemistry and dynamics of both their childhood as well as the years and distance of growing up and forgetting. Chastain is comfortably inspiring as the heart of the group (and has great rapport with Ryan), while MacAvoy pulls off a tight balance between reserved and commanding, and Mustafa thankfully gets much more to do as Mike than his younger counterpart.

But a surprising amount of the film's dramatic (as well as most of its comedic) weight ends up on the shoulders of Hader and Ransone, and the two not only have the enjoyable "bickering like a foul-mouthed married couple" patter of Wolfhard and Grazer down pat, but also get some surprising new wrinkles that not only end up helping the film get across the finish line, but are part of the changes from the source material that - while not all will make fans of the book happy - really end up shoring up emotional and thematic beats of the movie.

If It was about how our childhoods only seem like a perfect time because we choose to forget the darker truths, Chapter 2 posits that searching through the shadows is worthwhile in spite of the horrors it can bring to light. There's a middle section of the film that attempts to wrap some structure around the amnesiac meandering that the book's counterpart indulges in, and while the scavenger hunt nature won't be for everyone, it allows Muschietti to throw both his child and adult actors into highly effective scare set pieces, including some clever transitions between eras. Nothing in the film quite matches the abject terror of It's garage slideshow or the first encounter in the House on Neibolt Street, but there are still plenty of well-earned jumps and disturbing imagery to be found. I missed certain aspects of the book I'd have liked to see recreated, but there was a lot of awesome monster business (this film clearly had more of a budget to work with, and uses it well) and tight tension to keep things engaging. There's a slight feeling that some of the nastiest and weirdest edges have been sanded off to keep audiences having fun, but the result is, well a bunch of spooky fun.

At least, probably. There's still a lot of dense mythology and fluid narrative logic that hews more toward underlining themes of what's possible to believe and what's worth remembering. The film also has a canny understanding of the difference in how we fight the fears of childhood vs. the more banal but also relentless fears of growing up, and climaxes with a genuinely impressive use of its ensemble followed by a genuinely beautiful coda.

I can easily see It Chapter 2 being more divisive than the first - I felt the pacing was pretty smooth, but it's definitely on the long side, and has a shaggy structure and a lot of odd narrative hoops that it jumps through. It even gets close to breaking the fourth wall with a certain cameo and a repeated gag about adult Bill, a horror author, having trouble with endings in his stories (get it?). But if it lacks the elegance of its predecessor, I found the detours and big swings worth it, even if they don't always squarely connect. The film arguably changes one of the central themes of King's original novel in how it wraps up, but the tale it spins of the urgency of late-Gen X/elder Millennials having to make hard choices and real sacrifices to protect the next generation really resonated with me, as did the point it puts on the marks we should leave on our past and what's important to carry into the future.

And there's one area where the book and film absolutely agree - everyone knows what it feels like to be a Loser, but that doesn't mean we have to let the monsters win.