![]() ![]() There’s no lack of ambition in Muschietti’s approach or Gary Dauberman’s script (although the contrast shows just how much Cary Fukanaga’s long-time development of Chapter One’s screenplay might have helped the finished film) but the epic scope proves something of a stumbling block. Elsewhere, Jessica Chastain makes a great Bev and Jay Ryan plays hunky softie Ben to a tee, but few of the others (especially James McAvoy’s self-centred writer Bill) get much of an opportunity to shine. Even though the film leans (often inappropriately) on his comic timing, his take on trash-mouthed Ritchie tests the full range of his dramatic ability too, generating more heartfelt moments than big laughs. Where the younger actors (who are similarly great in their return appearances) had such amazing chemistry in Chapter One, we can only invest in individual efforts here.īill Hader absolutely steals the show. While you’d expect to see this sort of nostalgia from a belated follow-up or legacy-quel, there are an awful lot of callbacks to a film that came out only two years ago, and it does the adult actors no favours. Chapter One was hardly brisk, but it kept the suspense going nicely, whereas the sequel almost immediately splits up its grown-up characters and leans much too heavily on flashbacks to their childhoods, which feel more like additional material from the previous instalment. In this regard, Chapter Two commits to being less of a horror film than the first instalment, continuing all the same plot threads but significantly dialling back the scare factor. Despite the neat underlining of the town’s toxic, gaslighting environment in the prologue, the film spends more than an hour separating the adult characters and having them go on separate fetch-quests for a reason that’s impossible to take seriously. This includes certain sequences that fans have been dying to see, ranging from a horrific reunion at a Chinese restaurant to an encounter with a living Paul Bunyan statue, but also the idea that the Losers have lost all memory of their childhood experiences. The sequel starts promisingly, with a genuinely distressing sequence taken straight from the book, but with a whopping 169-minute running time, it stretches itself wildly over multiple plot strands in its unerring faithfulness to the source material. To paraphrase Whitney Houston, IT Chapter Two’s not right, but it’s OK. ![]() Of the original Losers’ Club, only Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) has remained in their hometown of Derry, leaving him to rally Bill (James McAvoy), Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Ben (Jay Ryan), Ritchie (Bill Hader), and Eddie (James Ransome) when the no-good clown resurfaces again. ![]() Muschietti and most of the IT crowd are back for the sequel, but could Chapter Two ever measure up?Īdapting the back-half of Stephen King’s mammoth novel, the film picks up in 2015, 26 years after Pennywise’s last appearance. “People love your book, but they hate that ending.” IT Chapter One was always going to be a tough act to follow – Andy Muschietti’s 2017 horror film was a genuine phenomenon, capturing the filmgoing public’s imagination and scaling hitherto-unseen box-office heights for an R-rated horror film. However, instead of continuing the trend that It: Chapter One created, It: Chapter Two runs in the opposite direction, and significantly deters you because of it.Cast: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan, James Ransome, Isaiah Mustafa, Bill Skarsgård ![]() Instead of allowing the extraordinariness of a King story dominate the film, It: Chapter One is surprisingly grounded, allowing the horror to come out of its themes to help us better understand and relate to the ideas of fear, isolation, and growing up. However, weirdness can only go so far if not executed properly, and that’s why It: Chapter One was a delightful surprise. We know him for his strange creatures, cosmic ideas, and his twisted stories that keep us from sleeping at night. Stephen King is one of the most well-known authors of our generation. ![]()
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