‘It Chapter Two’ is overstuffed, somewhat tedious

BY Ron and Leigh

Send in the clowns, again. This is another gruesome story about some Bozo scaring the bejesus out of the fictional Derry, Maine, townsfolk. This chapter takes place 27 years after the initial reign of terror from that clown called Pennywise. Now, the kiddos are grown and scattered about the country.

Based on the 1,100 page novel by Stephen King, this sequel, or as King calls it, the second half of the story, features adults returning to their backyards to face the enemy only they can defeat. After all, the kids did kind of a “pinky-swear” to return if and when “Smiley-face” came back for another hometown buffet.

Director Andy Muschietti returns to amp up the action and CGI creatures, beasts and ghouls. After an initial gratuitous murder, the first 30 minutes are dedicated to a peek into the current lives of each of the former Derry residents. It’s an “Ocean’s Eleven” type of team assembly. One of them explains, “What we wish stayed in the past, won’t stay there. Sometimes it comes back.”

Naturally, each immediately drops what he or she is doing, flies to Derry and joins their BFFs in a Chinese Restaurant. Richie announces, “The meeting of the Losers Club has officially begun.” Spoiler alert: We may not ever look at fortune cookies the same way. Muschietti effectively toggles between the team’s current lives and a series of flashbacks to their days of yesteryear to more clearly advance the storyline.

Naturally, the enemy is the clown with his sadistic murders and ample jump scares. However, they also encounter Native American tribal rituals, alien visitations and some mystic mysteries of the cosmos. The cast of grown Losers includes Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader, while Pennywise the Clown is again played all out by Bill Skarsgard, who also gets more screen time and lines.

In addition to the scary clown makeup, close up shots of Pennywise seem to show his eyes arbitrarily going in different directions. In between scenes, actor Bill Hader asked Skarsgaard, in full makeup, how the production team does that. Skarsgard, who has that unique ability said, “You mean like this?” Hader claims he completely freaked out.

Screenwriter Gary Dauberman, no stranger to adapting Stephen King novels, offers too many hit and miss sub-plots, but the non-stop buddy-banter, and wise-cracking one-liners are superbly delivered by these gifted actors. The Losers’ leader, played by Isaiah Mustafa, dribbles out just enough information to get his buds to the next scene. Off they go, and when in trouble, he frustratingly dribbles out a little more.

Although the almost three-hour length is not necessarily boring, it is overstuffed, overly complicated and somewhat tedious. Mostly, it appears Dauberman is making it up as he goes along. We appreciate the humor, but some of the funniest parts were unintentional.

After everything they’ve gone through, one suggests, “Let’s split up!” Then, when they reach the final encounter at the haunted house, the unarmed Bill (McAvoy) has a plan, “I’m going in.” As they say in the GEICO commercial, “When you’re in a horror movie, you make bad decisions.” So, the final long scene is in Bozo’s funhouse, yikes!

“It Chapter Two” is 169 minutes and rated R for disturbing violent content, bloody images, pervasive language and crude sexual material. Maybe we’re overthinking it, but we don’t understand how the clown can be omnipotent, but so arbitrary. He kills mercilessly, then randomly gives the stars a head start so they can get away.

Although this chapter has a more expansive plot, is a much longer movie and has more CGI, we didn’t see nearly as much popcorn fly through the air during the jump scares as the original. The message is to think happy thoughts and that there is nothing to fear but fear itself (we just made that up). One of the Losers declares, “We are what we wish to forget.” Well, we wish to forget this movie, so we guess that’s it.

Ron’s Rating: C-
Leigh’s Rating: D