Movie Review: "It Chapter 2" Wrestles With Weirdness

Pennywise fights the grown-up Losers in a WTF ritual battle of wills. Buckle up.

The most bone-chilling thing about It Chapter 2 is the slow realisation that you’re sitting through a three-hour movie.

I suppose we should have known going in, seeing as it’s based on a Stephen King novel that stretches on for 1,138 pages. That’s also what makes the Chapter 2 part of the title so amusing; the idea that his mighty meal of a horror epic could be contained in just two measly chapters, or even five filmic hours.

Director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman nearly pulled off this impossible task, and certainly came closer to realising the possibilities of King’s tome than the makers of the extremely average 1990 miniseries. (I haven’t seen the 1998 Indian TV adaptation, though the screenshots don’t bode well.) Whereas the book went back and forth in time, Muschietti’s impressive first entry stayed put in 1989, focusing on a septet of pre-teens fighting an otherworldly evil in the guise of the demonic dancing clown Pennywise.

To put it bluntly, It slapped.

In It Chapter 2, the kids are all grown up, if emotionally stunted, and called back to their hometown of Derry, Maine to kill Pennywise for good and end his 27-year cycle of harvesting children for hibernation.

And yet, despite that irresistible hook, terrific incoming actors and the return of Bill Skarsgård’s trembly-lipped Pennywise, this climactic instalment often flounders when it should float.

Much of that has to do with King’s expansive source material. As the book slow-burns to its climax over the course of 1,000 pages, the adults wander around Derry and separately endure the deluge of youthful, haunted memories flooding back to them; memories that had been blocked for decades. When halved in content and contorted into the shape of a movie, King’s story loses momentum.

At least It Chapter 2 gets to explore the tale’s wilder elements. As readers of the novel know, it’s when the adults come back to town that things take a bizarre turn, leading to the infamous "Ritual of Chüd". (If it was an episode of Friends, you’d call the 'present day' portion of It: "The One With All the Weird S***".) The picture even tries to prepare audiences for its strange conclusion, with many references to the writing career of adult Bill Denbrough (McAvoy) and his inability to pen a decent ending (a cheeky dig at King, who cameos gamely here and complains about one of Bill’s book endings too).

Though they dial back the weird, Muschietti and Dauberman rise to the challenge of the ending, even if that precise quixotic quest turns their film into a slight slog. To make up for it, Muschietti regularly whips out his favourite trick: having monsters explode out of the darkness and towards viewers. The polished CGI sometimes renders the horror unreal (no amount of sprayed blood, goop or vomit can change that), but those nerve-jolting dolly shots help It Chapter 2 feel like you’re sitting in the front seat of the funnest haunted ride at the fair.

Adding Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, James Ransome, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan and Andy Bean as the grown up "Losers" is a neat casting coup, with Hader a stand-out as Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier. (These films’ greatest achievement will always be turning the book's most offensive and frustrating character, Richie, into its genuinely funniest and, especially in Chapter 2, most layered, thanks to the performances of Hader and, as the young Richie, Finn Wolfhard.) However, it’s when we flash back to their tween counterparts that the flick really shines, reminding you of their chemistry. There’s a disorienting, gauzy effect to those flashbacks too, due to the digital anti-ageing technology that has de-pubertised many of the now 16-year-old actors. Wolfhard’s head seems to have been shrunken entirely.

Thankfully, there’s been no skull-shrinking of Pennywise, the clown with the fivehead to end all foreheads. Skarsgård’s presence is utilised sparingly, always to great effect, especially on the hunt for Derry locals played by exceptional child actors Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Luke Roessler. He’s the reason, even after the comedown of Chapter 2, you want to see another sequel set 27 years in the future, with the losers’ kids forced to assemble and fight a returned Pennywise. Maybe this is It's real sign of success. Here I am, complaining about the length, and still asking for a little bit more.

3.5/5

It Chapter 2 arrives in Australian cinemas 5 September 2019. Rated MA15+ for strong horror themes, bloody violence and coarse language.