IT CHAPTER TWO (2019)

Studio:      Warner Bros.
Director:    Andy Muschietti
Writer:      Gary Dauberman
Producer:  Barbara Muschietti, Dan Lin, Roy Lee
Stars:     Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgard

Review Score:

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Summary:

27 years after defeating Pennywise, Ben Hanscom summons his childhood friends back to Derry to end the evil once and for all.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

September 1989 – After defeating Pennywise, Losers Club members Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough, Mike Hanlon, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Stanley Uris swear a blood oath to come back and fight the evil entity if it ever returns to Derry.

27 Years Later – Mike, who never left town, discovers Pennywise resurfaced to kill a gay man beaten up by four punks outside the Canal Days carnival. Mike separately summons Bill, Eddie, Richie, Ben, Stan, and Bev to return to Derry.

Mike, Bill, Eddie, Richie, Ben, and Bev reunite over dinner at the Jade of the Orient Chinese restaurant. As Mike discusses Pennywise’s return, the other five former friends realize they forgot what happened in 1989 because they moved away from Derry.

Fortune cookie messages reveal Stan committed suicide after taking Ben’s call. Everyone hallucinates seeing winged creatures emerge from the cookies. Before leaving the restaurant, Richie interacts with a young boy named Dean who he mistakes for Pennywise in another disguise.

With Richie and Eddie threatening to leave town due to their fear, Mike takes Bill to the library. Mike shows Bill an ancient tribal artifact depicting ‘It’ coming to Earth and native tribes combating the entity over millennia. Mike drugs Bill’s drink so he sees the same vision that Shokopiwah shamans once showed Mike of ‘The Ritual of Chud,’ which can supposedly allow a united group to destroy the evil.

Pennywise eats a little girl under the bleachers at a local baseball games. Driven made by Pennywise, Henry Bowers escapes the Juniper Hill Psychiatric Hospital where he was committed after his father’s death. A ghoulish vision of Henry’s childhood bully buddy Hockstetter drives Henry in a muscle car.

Mike, Bill, Bev, Ben, Richie, and Eddie regroup at the inn where everyone is staying. After admitting she knew Stan would kill himself, Bev reveals that her predictive visions showed her all of them would die horrible deaths. Mike explains Bev has these visions because she was entranced by Pennywise’s deadlights while they were in the sewer as children. Mike adds that they have to defeat Pennywise now because they will not live to see another 27-year cycle.

Mike takes everyone to the underground clubhouse Ben built when they were kids. Mike explains that for the banishing ritual to work, everyone must recover their missing memories from 1989 by retrieving a personal artifact to be sacrificed.

Bev returns to the apartment where she used to live with her abusive father. Elderly resident Mrs. Kersh invites Bev inside. Bev finds her hidden postcard with a poem written by Ben that she still assumes came from Bill.

Mrs. Kersh mentions that her father joined the circus as a clown. Mrs. Kersh transforms into a ghoulish witch and attacks Bev. Bev escapes the encounter after Pennywise taunts that she hasn’t changed anything yet.

Richie goes to the abandoned Capitol movie theater. A video game token reminds Richie of being bullied by Henry Bowers while playing Street Fighter. In the memory, a demonic Paul Bunyan statue attacks Richie outside the theater. In the present, Pennywise taunts Richie because he has kept his longtime crush on Eddie a secret.

After purchasing his old bicycle from a secondhand store, Bill bikes to his old house. A vision compels Bill to reach his hand into the storm drain where his little brother Georgie disappeared. Ghoulish hands grab at Bill, but he pulls his arm free after retrieving the paper boat he made with Georgie.

Bill encounters Dean, the boy from the Chinese restaurant who now lives in Bill’s childhood home. Dean reveals that he sometimes hears children’s voices coming from his bathtub drain. Bill warns Dean to get far away from Derry.

Ben returns to Derry High School. Ben remembers Pennywise tormenting him by exploiting his crush on Beverly. Ben takes comfort from a keepsake yearbook page, which only Bev signed.

Ben regroups with Bev at the inn. Bev produces the postcard while pining over Bill. Ben prepares to tell Bev the truth about the poem when Richie interrupts to say he is leaving.

Eddie gets an inhaler from the pharmacy. Compelled to go into the store’s basement, Eddie remembers abandoning his hypochondriac mother to be tortured by Pennywise because he was too scared to free her. The leper he confronted as a child reappears. Eddie escapes by choking the ghoul, but it covers Eddie in slime first.

Eddie and Bill return to the inn. Bill and Bev kiss after remembering their past romance.

A bloody skateboard indicates Pennywise is going after Dean. Remembering that Dean said he was going to the Canal Days fair, Bill leaves to rescue the boy.

Henry Bowers stabs Eddie in his face in Eddie’s bathroom. Eddie stabs Henry in his chest. Ben enters in time to see Henry escape through a window.

Bill finds Dean at the fair and follows him into the funhouse. However, Bill is unable to stop Pennywise from eating Dean.

Richie sneaks out of the inn and drives away. Richie decides to rejoin his friends after driving past the synagogue and remembering Stan proclaiming himself a loser at his bar mitzvah.

At the library, Mike recalls his parents dying in a fire. Henry suddenly attacks him. Richie kills Henry from behind to rescue Mike. Bev, Ben, and Eddie join the two men only to discover Bill, enraged by Dean’s death, plans to face Pennywise alone.

Mike, Bev, Ben, Richie, and Eddie join Bill at the Neiboldt house. Despite Bill blaming himself for cursing everyone because of his obsession with finding Georgie as a kid, the six friends vow to defeat Pennywise together.

Inside the house, Ben begins bleeding from a wound where Henry scarred him as a kid. A mirror reflection shows Pennywise cutting Ben. Bev smashes the mirror to save Ben.

Stan’s decapitated head rolls out of a fridge to taunt Bill. The head morphs into a spiderlike creature that attacks Richie. The head scurries away after Ben attacks it.

Everyone descends into the sewer beneath the house. The hag pulls Bev underwater, but Bill, Ben, and Richie rescue her.

Mike leads the others down a hatch leading to Pennywise’s deep underground lair. Mike lights a fire inside the tribal artifact. Everyone places their keepsakes inside, including Stan’s shower cap that he insisted they wear to protect their hair from spiders in the clubhouse. Mike adds the bloody rock that Bev used to save him from Henry in 1989, which became the event that brought their group together.

Mike begins the ritual, which he claims will show them Pennywise’s true form and allow them to kill it. Pennywise’s deadlights descend into the chamber. Mike traps the force in the artifact, but it reemerges as a giant red balloon that pops.

Pennywise appears. Pennywise forces Mike to admit the ritual was a placebo. Pennywise reveals Mike didn’t show everyone the fourth side of the artifact, which depicted ‘It’ destroying the natives who tried killing the creature with the ritual. Mike explains he believed the strength of their bond would result in a different fate.

Pennywise morphs into an enormous spiderlike creature. The six friends flee, become separated, and battle various visions of Pennywise in different forms.

Ben professes his love for Beverly by repeating the poem he wrote. Ben’s revelation empowers Bev to rescue herself and Ben.

Pennywise entrances Richie. Overcoming his fear at last, Eddie rescues Richie, but Pennywise impales Eddie on one of its claws.

Before dying, Eddie recalls being able to choke the leper in the pharmacy basement. Believing they can kill Pennywise if they can cause him to shrink first, the five remaining friends take away Pennywise’s power by taunting him until he becomes small and defenseless.

Mike tears out Pennywise’s heart. Mike, Ben, Bev, Bill, and Richie crush the heart together. Pennywise decays and crumbles.

Everyone escapes the sewer as it falls apart. The house collapses on top of it.

Mike, Ben, Bev, Bill, and Richie mourn Eddie while bathing in the river. Bev and Ben kiss underwater. Everyone’s blood oath scars inexplicably disappear from their palms.

Some time later, everyone receives a letter Stan wrote before his suicide. Stan explains he was too afraid to return to Derry, but knew the Losers Club couldn’t defeat Pennywise unless they were united, so he removed himself to save their lives. Richie honors his crush on Eddie through a carving at the bridge. Ben and Bev end up together. Mike finally leaves town.

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Review:

Box office whisperers probably read all sorts of things into the fact that “It Chapter Two” grossed over 200 million worldwide dollars less than its predecessor, 2017’s “It” (review here). The Rotten Tomatoes drop from 86% for the first film to 63% for the second would seem to corroborate any conclusion that a quality dip kept disappointed moviegoers out of the theater for the follow-up.

Alternatively, one might theorize that the first film wasn’t as big of a bowl-you-over hit as many think they remember. It’s hard to believe so many people invested two and a quarter hours plus the price of admission in an epic horror adventure, supposedly came away thrilled, then suddenly said, “nah, not interested” when it came time for the conclusion. A more sensible scenario suggests “It” didn’t impress everyone enough to warrant making a commitment to the nearly three-hour sequel.

I otherwise can’t imagine why waffling word of mouth alone would cause audiences to turn away from Chapter Two when they turned out for Chapter One. From my vantage point, there’s nothing dramatically different about the two films that someone who enjoyed one would avoid the other. Issues exist with “It Chapter Two’s” editing, overstuffing, and dubious fluctuations in tone. But “It” had similar troubles. Warts and all, “It Chapter Two” simply serves as a logical extension of the previous movie in terms of quality as well as story.

“It Chapter Two” doesn’t get off on the wrong foot per se, but does stumble from the Achilles injury that trips it up every 10 minutes or so. Namely, the film has its work cut out in finding time to play with each person in its seemingly bottomless box of characters. Affording everyone equal attention, as well as finding opportune points to flip from one thread to another, prompts tempo to lurch or to limp on repeated occasions.

Since we’re catching up with the Losers Club 27 years after we saw them send Pennywise into a sewer, a healthy chunk of Act One makes space for a long “where are they now?” collage. Bill is a writer. Eddie still sweats the small stuff. Richie does standup comedy. Ben works as an architect. And Beverly finds herself locked in an abusive marriage. None of these stations in life are “new” exactly, which makes this sequence partly redundant as it essentially affirms everyone merely became adult incarnations of their childhood selves.

Mind you, all of this excisable exposition comes after a seven-minute prologue spent dealing with someone whose only other appearance comes as a ghoul for four seconds. For a movie working with a longer than usual runtime, “It Chapter Two” makes odd coverage choices with out of whack pacing priorities.

Immense improvement arrives when the friends reunite in Derry for a laidback Chinese dinner. Bill, Ben, Bev, and the non-Bs in their bunch play better when the actors get to work with and off of one another. It’s easy to dial into the flash, bangs, and scares and only evaluate “It” as a horror story. At its heart however, the film is really a fable about friendship. The camaraderie among the Losers Club members centers emotional engagement and their moments together always elevate atmosphere.

Richie and Eddie anchor that core with comic relief and what turns out to be genuine love for each other. Bill Hader and James Ransone have more screen time than anyone else, or at least seem to, but deservedly so. Hader slightly softens the harsh humor Finn Wolfhard had as Richie without losing Richie’s irreverent edge. During the restaurant reunion specifically, Hader’s jovial jabs melt everyone’s icy faces of fear, including the audience’s. Counteracting terror with joke-based entertainment stays his dominant skill for the entire movie.

On the other hand, director Andy Muschietti has a tendency to call for comedy when it isn’t welcome, or worse, when it deflates tension completely. Richie and Eddie choosing between three doors while music highlights their head turns would be a less in-your-face example. But I’m as baffled as everyone else by the utterly bizarre inclusion of “Angel of the Morning,” far and away the most out of place needle drop in modern movie history. For the record though, I chuckled every time the running gag about Bill being terrible at writing endings came up, particularly when Stephen King repeats it in his cameo.

Maybe Muschietti just had his hands full juggling what to do with everyone. Mike probably draws the shortest straw. Isaiah Mustafa doesn’t have much to do beyond filling in backstory and looking ominously worried all the time, although that can be excused by Mike having similarly limited responsibilities in the source novel. It’s also strange to cast Oscar-nominee Jessica Chastain for Bev when the role largely requires furious action over emoting, save for an occasional longing stare directed at one of her two love interests.

Even Richie gets caught up in “where should I go and what should I do?” confusion. Richie twice decides to get out while the getting’s good and abandon the entire situation outright. Each time he conveniently drags his feet just long enough to allow beats for other characters to catch up to his.

Effectively managing length is indeed “It Chapter Two’s” most confounding challenge. Muschietti, writer Gary Dauberman, and the editors no doubt ran themselves ragged deciding what stays and what goes. Yet some of their decisions can’t be justified independent of their explanations.

A boy from the Chinese restaurant who appears in two other scenes could disappear into skinny air without the plot feeling an ill effect. Then again, that would leave Pennywise with one less piece of prey when his hunger is already underserved by scandalously limited appearances. Other than the aforementioned prologue, only one other scene shows the clown slaughtering a random kid in no way connected to the Losers Club. It’s a strange scene because with his evil already well established, the only value in this one-off is a short shock. It seems someone noticed how little we see of Pennywise and said, “since we’re already slicing and dicing scenes in weird ways, let’s sandwich in one more kill just for fun.”

While on the subject of scares, Muschietti seemingly studied at the James Wan school of cinematic theatrics, though that’s not a bad thing if you appreciate flair with your frights. A couple of creeps are cliché, like a mirror reflection scare or someone stabbed from behind and falling to the floor to reveal who really buried the blade.

But “It Chapter Two” creates a “Star Wars” cantina’s worth of creative creature designs and noteworthy setpieces. Ghoulish hands grabbing Bill from a storm drain, a certain someone’s rolling head going all Outpost 31, and whatever the weird mutated bats with crying baby faces are that come out of fortune cookies account for only some of the spooks certain to reappear in various nightmares.

While different whittling would have straightened storytelling to be succinct and more purposeful, what moments make it onscreen usually come with meaningful impact. Pennywise’s receded presence hinders the fear factor, yet “It Chapter Two” really resonates when human drama eclipses monster madness anyway. Themes of childhood ties and overcoming trauma provide the true punch while slight scares tie the strings on the glove. For the most part, “It Chapter Two” digests as easily edible entertainment, and follows suit with the first film more often than it falls out of step.

Review Score: 75

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