The best way I can think to describe this movie is “close.” It gets very close to being the movie I want it to be, and that I feel the movie itself wants to be, at its heart. All the elements are there for a really affecting film, but the movie frequently loses focus, and drifts into somewhat lazy horror filmmaking, at the expense of the truly great aspects.

There are a ton of examples I could pull that illustrate the issues I have with this movie, but here’s one: the scene of Ben visiting the school and remembering an encounter with Pennywise. Staying behind after class, Ben is surprised by Bev sticking behind as well, and they share a sweet conversation. In a quiet moment, Ben attempts to kiss her, but she pulls away, shocked. She cruelly dismisses his obvious feelings for her, her words escalating in intensity until it becomes clear that Ben is not talking to Bev. In a whip pan, Bev is revealed to be a form of It, smiling crazily with her hair ablaze, a mockery of Ben’s poem. This all works. It’s subtlety in torturing Ben’s innermost fears of heartbreaking, and the gradual reveal and surprise reveal shot is effective. This is powerful stuff, but sadly everything that comes after as the scene continues serves only to detract from this effective start. Fire-demon-Bev chases Ben out of the classroom and down the hall, forcing him to hide in a locker, only to be spooked by Pennywise again, before barely escaping thanks to presence of a random janitor. This all feels superfluous. The important beat of the scene, that It knows how to aggravate Ben’s innermost anxiety relating to his inability to receive love, is accomplished well in the first part. Yet the film feels obliged to provide traditional scares too, so the scene drags on, without any tension, to provide this.

I mention Ben’s scene, but so many scenes in the movie function like this. There is usually a good ‘core’ to every scene, a striking moment of horror that illuminates something about our characters, or It, or the world they inhabit, but that core is almost always surrounded by pointless fluff. Why does Richie have to run from a giant Paul Bunyan-looking monster? The moment right after, in which Pennywise taunts him while Derry citizens creepily watch in the distance is far more engaging and relevant. Why does Bev have to run from a big long-limbed version of Mrs. Kersh? The whole scene leading up to that, in which she is remembering her abuse and being subtly provoked by It is far more terrifying. In the restaurant, why do a dozen little monsters need to pop out of the fortune cookies, while black acid comes out of the table, while heads are floating in the aquarium? The moment immediately prior to all that, with just the message in the fortune cookies, is far more chilling.

Many of the horror sequences seem to lose track of what the true horror at play is. It’s very frustrating because, despite the length of this movie, no scene feels completely unnecessary. I could always see what purpose a scene is meant to serve, it was just that the scenes almost universally felt bloated with elements that only distracted from and obfuscated the interesting bits.

Because here’s the thing - Pennywise the Dancing Clown is not, in and of itself, scary (at least I do not think so). Nor are any of the other various monsters It manifests as. They are shocking and surprising, and often entertaining thanks to good performances like Bill Skarsgård’s, but not really scary in a way that sticks with me. It only becomes truly scary when It is used to highlight and/or represent the real-life horrors facing the characters, and the horrors of living in Derry.

And there are so many ways in which the movie comes close to doing that. In fact, maybe too many, since it feels like the movie doesn’t really pick a focus and thus struggles to cram in a lot of related but different themes. Like, the movie opens with the very powerful scene of two gay men being attacked, resulting in It eating one of the men. In this instance, It is representative of the inherent sickness within Derry, the violence and intolerance that people inflict upon each other that allows a creature like It to survive. This theme kind of just fades away though, as the movie begins to focus more on the war, of sorts, waged between the adult Loser’s Club and It. In this context, It is preying upon the trauma that these characters have never come to terms with in an attempt to prevent them from finishing the job they began as kids. And connected to that but sort of separate is the idea that our characters are reliving and reenacting their trauma and self-destructive behaviors, with Bev and Eddie finding themselves with abusive partners that echo their parents, or Ben and Richie isolating themselves. In this context, returning to Derry and confronting It again is representative of that unconscious drive to relive past trauma. This connects to the idea of having forgotten their pasts. There is this guilt the character’s feel at having left Derry and forgotten each other, especially with having left Mike behind, while the evil of It continues to fester and grow, unresolved both in Derry and within themselves. And this is closely related to the regret the characters feel for missed opportunities, like Ben and Bev and Bill having been unable to resolve their love triangle, or Richie having not resolved questions about his sexuality, or Mike not having left Derry. Again, closely related but somewhat separate. And all of these themes surrounding the main characters connects to a need to support and trust each other, and resolve any interpersonal conflicts, so that they are strong enough to confront It again. And then there is the looming threat of allowing another cycle of It’s terror to be completed, with new kids being threatened in familiar ways, like the girl with cheek mark and the skater kid. That is like the danger of the adult Loser’s Club becoming the sort of adults that failed to protect them as kids, thus continuing a cycle of neglect. And this sort of ties into the threat of inevitable death hanging over the main characters that Bev sees if they leave Derry while failing to kill It. This comes up periodically, and is like being consumed by your pain and sorrow if you do not make the effort to recover from past trauma.

Ahh. Whoa. Like, that is a lot of stuff going on. All of it is present to varying degrees and it is all somewhat related, but I felt that there was just too many ideas and the movie failed to fully develop or fully resolve any of them. Picking just one or even two of those ideas would have been enough to sustain this movie, but the attempt to do all of it results in none of it feeling complete.

I feel like Chapter 1 handled its themes much more coherently than Chapter 2. It’s campaign of horror was only possible thanks to the malicious, neglectful and abusive behavior of Derry’s inhabitants, and the kids, our main characters, felt the effects of that directly and very personally. We got time with each kid to understand the specifics of their fears that Pennywise brought out of them, and how the other inhabitants of the town caused, or dismissed, or enabled those fears. And then, the personal fears of the kids were reflected in the incarnations of It. Cumulatively, these narratives painted a dark picture of Derry and the ways It was able to thrive in that environment. It was clear, and every piece of the story connected to and informed the others. That overall clarity of focus allowed me to forgive the somewhat clunky film-making that Chapter 1 also had. Chapter 2 does not have that luxury, and by failing to pick a focus, all the various elements feel disconnected and awkward, and the less than stellar aspects of its filmmaking have nowhere to hide.

Critically, I think the first movie also had a clear thesis on how to overcome the horror of It and Derry. The kids form a supportive friend group in which they all recognize and acknowledge each other’s pain and fear, and also make that pain feel smaller through humor and creating happy memories together. Defeating It in the finale of Chapter 1 felt earned, since we saw the kids grow, mature, and become stronger together.

In Chapter 2, how are the Loser’s Club able to beat It at the end? What issues did they overcome to be strong enough to do so, and how? There are many possible answers, but it is very unclear, again due to the lack of focus. In the end, they pretty much just do what they did at the end of the last movie, by collectively showing that they do not fear It, making it small and destroying It. The characters all have deep issues and character flaws, but it didn’t feel like the characters really had to reckon with their personal issues.

Like, Bill is dealing mainly with survivor’s guilt and his need to do things alone, up until he finds himself in the flooded basement again. But, in this high pressure situation, he just kind of gets over it, right then and there, all on his own. Thanks, It, for providing the perfect scenario for him to overcome his trauma instead of killing him.

Ben’s arc more or less works, in that he has felt he is undeserving or unworthy of love - why exactly he feels this way despite having overcome his body image concerns isn’t made clear, but we can just take that for granted - but hearing Bev speak of her love for his poem gives him the courage to eventually say he loves her at the climax. It’s a bit cheesy, but it’s fine, it’s complete. However, I really don’t like how that is also the resolution for Bev. Bev has displayed a tendency to fall into the same pattern of abusive men, as shown in that great and horrific scene with her husband. The issue, as I saw it, was that she was scared to find out the truth behind the poem and pursue Bill, who she thought wrote it. She was scared the true author would disappoint her in a way that the poem alone could not. So, she has fallen back into familiar abusive relationships. She doesn’t have to actively try to change that pattern, or consciously search for something better. She simply gets lucky that Ben shot his shot and he turns out to be the perfect nice and hot man she has been missing all along. Thanks, It, for putting them in a situation where they can both realize this.

Richie is struggling with something of an identity crisis related to his sexuality. This seems like it had to be added to give the character more depth, because otherwise there wasn’t much to follow up on from the first movie. This isn’t really made clear until the very end, which sort of makes it confusing what Richie is struggling with throughout the movie. This also prevents him to have any sort of breakthrough within the movie. He ends the movie having retained his “secret,” so what was the point?

Eddie has a complete arc of sorts, although it is the most shallow of the characters. He is meek, and afraid of seemingly everything and frequently unable to act under pressure, until the end where he is confident enough to save Richie by attacking It with an epic javelin throw. He gets killed for his trouble. In its broad strokes, it more or less works, but I think the consistent use of Eddie as the comic relief weakens the impact of his death. Like, Eddie’s encounters with the leper and then with Bowers are both sources of comedy. His pain is explicitly made to be funny, for some reason, despite other characters being treated more sincerely. So it feels less effective at the end when the movie now asks me to take Eddie’s climactic moment seriously.

Finally, Mike’s side of story is left incomplete. As the only one left behind in Derry, the drama between him and the other characters should write itself. Mike misses his friends, and needs their help, but feels betrayed that they left and forget about him, and that many of them are prepared to leave again. [Side note: This plot point about forgetting is undermined by attributing it to a sort of magical amnesia caused by It. This would be much more powerful if, of their own volition, the characters had allowed themselves to forget their past, because even their positive memories of the Loser’s Club did not outweigh the bad memories of Derry and It. That really happens, in real life. People move on and forgot. Making it magic weakens the impact of this plot point.] Anyways, Mike hatches an ambitious and improbable scheme to defeat It with an old Native American ritual, that, in a great reveal, turns out to have been fraudulent, a false story partially concocted by Mike. Unsure of how to convince his friends to help, he had presented a false façade of confidence with this ritual as the centerpiece, hoping the ruse would be convincing enough to empower the group to defeat It. But the lie fails. Unlike the true bond the Loser’s Club had as kids when they beat It the first time, the adults are bound together by a little more than a lie, and Mike is responsible for leading them into danger when they weren’t ready. Sadly, none of this interesting conflict is resolved. The only consequence for Mike’s deception is the death of Eddie, but the movie does not present it that way. Eddie dies because, I don’t know, he turned his back too soon after getting a good hit in. Mike doesn’t suffer any consequences. His friends barely register that he lied and immediately forgive him, and then proceed to defeat It regardless. Mike gets off scot free, and his character journey is left feeling incomplete.

So, none of the Losers really receive a full satisfying arc. It is particularly frustrating because the elements are there, and it is not hard for me to imagine a better version of this story. And that version does not require much addition, mostly subtraction of unnecessary and distracting components, to drill down to the pieces that are most interesting.

Addendum 1:

The other main character, of sorts, of the film series is Derry itself. The town and its residents contributed a lot to that first movie. The adults were neglectful and abusive, the authority figures were ineffectual. Violence and intolerance reigned supreme. The town refused to acknowledge its complicity in allowing kids to be killed, repeatedly and over decades. The opening scene in Chapter 2 seems to place the focus on the vitriol and complacency within the town and its people, but this idea is abandoned as the focus shifts to the main characters. Curiously, the town barely factors into this movie at all. It is genuinely very strange how few townspeople the adults interact when upon returning to Derry. The town feels mostly absent, and the movie feels much weaker without that added context.

Addendum 2:

A note on the use of comedy in this movie: It doesn’t feel well placed. I think the presence of comedy is essential, and really helped define the first movie. Pennywise uses comedy in two main ways, as part of his warm, good-clown persona to lure in young kids, and to belittle and bully the main characters. The main characters also use humor, as a way of building camaraderie, as well as to overcome their fears and insecurities, and ultimately to defeat It. The comedy was entertaining to the audience in all these cases, but it didn’t feel exclusively for the audience, since it was serving a purpose within the narrative.

Again, some of that is still present in Chapter 2, but it lacks the discipline to use it effectively. The leper vomit scene is an egregious example that exists exclusively for the audience to laugh at Eddie, and really undercuts what is happening. The three doors sequence is another that doesn’t fit well in its context. The whole scenario is constructed by It while trying to kill them, presumably, yet Richie and Eddie are riffing and cracking jokes throughout it. It doesn’t feel like either side is using humor to disempower the other, it just feels like a goofy situation with the funniest main characters meant to make the audience laugh, but placed within the climax of the film.

Addendum 3:

Henry Bowers feels like a huge missed opportunity. The parallels between him and the Loser’s Club are stark and extremely interesting. Bowers grew up without a parent and the remaining parent was abusive, akin to Bev and Eddie. He was tormented and manipulated by It, just as the other kids were, and he has been left behind in Derry for all these years, similar to Mike. Bowers is a vital counterpoint to the Loser’s Club as he is the example of what happens to kids who do not have that sort of supportive friend group in the caustic environment that is Derry. Because while he inflicted pain upon the Losers, he was also trapped in the cycle of violence of Derry. Chapter 1 recognized this, and had a lot of empathy for Bowers’s story. I was hoping to see some flickers of humanity within adult Bowers, or some moments of empathy from the adult Losers. But there was nothing. Bowers in Chapter 2 is just another monster on the loose within Derry, little more than a distraction to the heroes. Richie kills him with an axe to the head, gives a pithy one liner, and Bowers is never seen from or acknowledged again. It’s a real shame. Even if the filmmakers wanted to keep him strictly as a villain, Bowers’s personal history with the Losers is barely acknowledged. He tormented the kids in horrible ways, notably Ben’s cutting at his hand, and driving Richie out of the arcade. But that past goes mostly unremarked upon. There is neither triumph at besting this old foe, nor sadness while lamenting the dark path Bowers was forced upon. Just a few close calls, an axe to the head, and a couple laughs. Quite a shame.