Originally watched this on the big screen, watched it again at home, and it felt even longer than it did the first time through. If you combine the first and second halves it turns into a 5+ hour movie. I feel that generally horror movies should be 90 minutes long… though It has always been more of an epic (I mean have you seen the paperback?) so it can go a little longer, but let’s not go nutso here. Five hours is a bit over the top. We’re falling into “SOMEone thinks pretty highly of their garden-variety movie remake” land.
That said, it’s a remake. It’s taking someone else’s approach and saying “Those guys were kinda hacks, I’ll bet we can do better.” It’s kinda rude, right? It’s like if I were to look at Picasso’s “Guernica” and say to myself “Hmm, I feel like those horses are all turned weird angles, and I have a lot of money, so I’m pretty sure I can do a better envisioning of the Spanish Civil War.”
It was fun in the theater, but exhausting. Some movies use jump-scares, but It goes beyond that, and opts instead to have someone come and scream into my face for two hours non-stop. Still, kinda fun, in an abuse-me-mistress sort of way.
2017 Pennywise, though? I have issues. Just like everything else in a modern green-screeny Hollywood movie machine, Pennywise seemed like a computer-generated cartoon character, kinda manufactured. The 1990 Pennywise wins for me. Let’s face it, if the 1990 Pennywise wasn’t such a slam dunk they never would have made a second one to capitalize on his success. Movie versions of Stephen King books tend to have a 15% success ratio. You have your “The Shining” and your “Stand By Me” and your “It” and your “Carrie” and your “Misery” and then you have the 600 OTHER projects that no one feels the need to remake because “reasons.”
The second half takes the majority of the screen time, which is… well nobody ever said about either production “You know what part I liked best? When all the traumatized children come back as damaged adults.” Nobody. It’s where the book falls flat, it’s where the 1990 version falls flat, we prefer to watch children being chased by scary clownmonsters than to watch grownups who act like children being chased by clownmonsters. We’re morally-suspect like that. This is probably why Stephen King’s body of work seems dominated by themes of children being traumatized. Know your audience!
Seriously, though. WTF, audience?? Kinda creepy.
Then the grown-ups win in the end by (spoiler alert) being mean to the intergalactic clownmonster. “What do we do? Call a priest? Fight him with a chainsaw? Do an ancient ritual utilizing a dead language and pre-Medieval antiquities we located in a war-torn third-world country?” “Nah, let’s just ‘Mean Girl’ him to death. Call him names. Bully him on Facebook.” Honestly, I should have just stopped after “Part One.”
Mido slept through Part Two, and wasn’t a fan of Part One. Too yelly.