By Matthew Bledsoe
The much anticipated conclusion to the 2017 horror smash hit has finally arrived, and besides a few missteps, it mostly delivers.
Chapter 2 picks up 27 years after the events of the first film and finds the Losers reunited when Pennywise begins to terrorize the town of Derry once more. We find the childhood friends all spread far and wide, away from the small Maine town and all mostly successful in their careers. We also find them in a state of memory loss. That is, except Mike Hanlon, who has never left Derry and calls the gang back home when he realizes Pennywise has returned. Mike hasn’t forgotten that they made an oath to stop Pennywise if it ever came back. Slowly but surely the Losers begin to remember the trauma of that fateful summer of their youth.
First things first, this movie was up against a challenge from the get go, since it’s almost universally agreed upon that the kid portion of It (in the novel and 1990 TV miniseries) is the stronger portion of the story. There is just something special about the coming of age nature of that story. That’s what I was so drawn to in 2017. The casting was perfect and you felt so deeply for those kids. They were scared not only of Pennywise, but the real challenges kids can face. Getting rejected by your crush, bullies, abusive parents, and more. In fact, that cast of kids was so great, I think it actually causes one of Chapter 2’s issues which is an over reliance on flashbacks. It seems that they were so popular, the creators thought we need more of these kids in chapter 2. The constant back and forth in past and present is a bit jarring at times and does a bit of disservice to the story they are trying to tell. This also causes my other big issue with the movie, which is the fact that it’s almost 3 hours long and it feels that long. Pacing is a huge issue here and cutting back on some flashbacks and maybe trimming 20-30 minutes would have helped considerably.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this is still a really well made movie and I really enjoyed it overall. The cast of adults are all good to great, with Bill Hader totally stealing the show. He’s not just the comedic relief either as the jokester of the group, Richie, he also has the best character arc and some of the most emotional moments in the film.
There are still plenty of scary and brutal Pennywise moments as well this time around, but for me, IT has never really been about that. It’s about childhood trauma, having to grow up, and being able to let go and move on. It’s about not letting the bad memories swallow up all the good ones. As I said before, the movie is very long, but the last 15 minutes is one of the most emotionally satisfying conclusions I’ve seen in a long time and some of the best stuff I’ve seen in a movie all year.
Grade: B