It Chapter 2 hits the mark
It Chapter 2 (R16, 169 mins) Directed by Andy Muschietti Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★
Idon’t know how many Stephen King novels I’ve read. Certainly not all of them. Not even close.
I’ve definitely done the same opshop shelf of best-sellers that any half-baked fan of King must – Carrie, The Shining, Salem’s Lot,
The Stand, Pet Sematary, et al. And you can add It to that list, of course.
But of the 40 or so movie adaptations of King’s novels and stories, I reckon I’ve seen most of the ones that at least made it to the big screen down here.
Usually King adaptations – especially of the books you haven’t read – stand out for being more than competent, a little, errm, ‘‘expected’’ in the direction the story will take, but generally a pretty reliably good time is had by all.
Of the horrors – let’s just leave Stand By Me, The Green Mile and
The Shawshank Redemption etc for another day – there are a few I flat out love.
Kubrick’s The Shining isa masterpiece and always will be. Brian De Palma’s 1976 Carrie is also ageing very well. The original 1989 Pet Sematary and the 1990 Misery are standouts. Apt Pupil and
Christine also yielded fine films. You will have your own favourites. As you should.
And I have a soft spot you could lose your shoe in for Lawrence Kasdan’s adaptation of
Dreamcatcher, which tumbles across the screen in such a jumble of unhinged dementedness I couldn’t help but love it.
Although, if I talk about my affection for Dreamcatcher too loudly or often, my licence to review films will certainly be revoked.
But I felt like a bit of an outlier in 2017, for not particularly liking the first chapter of It.
I never thought it was a bad film, just not up to the massive hype. The scares were thoroughly telegraphed and not particularly original, the American obsession with small-town nostalgia never does export terribly well. And, well, I guess I’m just not scared of clowns.
So Bill Skarsgard’s ‘‘Pennywise’’ – the conduit of all evil who resides under the town of Derry, in King’s beloved Maine – didn’t really do it for me (no pun intended).
The makeup design seemed comical – and Skarsgard’s voice was never more than an annoyance – when clearly the film-makers were aiming more for flat-out terrifying.
So I walked into a Wednesday night preview of It Chapter 2 with my whelm ready to be undered. Sequels aren’t renowned for surpassing first instalments.
And since I wasn’t a fan already. . . But no. Director Andy Muschietti’s (Mama) second bite at the cherry not only succeeds in all the places the first film fell short, it also makes the first film positively shine in a way it could not do alone.
We pick up the action in the present day, more or less. Twentyseven years have elapsed. And, as promised, Pennywise is back, snatching the children of Derry into the darkness, just as he has for millennia. ‘‘Like one of those cicadas, who sleep for decades and then. . . boom,’’ as someone helpfully put it in Chapter One.
The Losers’ Club, the gang of freaks and geeks who defeated Pennywise as children, are called back to Derry as 40-somethings by their friend Mike, the only one of the original gang who remained in the town.
The rest have moved on to various degrees of success in other parts of the country. The further they live from Derry, the less they can remember of whatever it was that happened to them in that summer of 1989.
The casting here is a triumph. Jessica Chastain, James Mcavoy, Jay Ryan and Isaiah Mustafa inhabit the roles of Beverly, Bill, Ben and Mike in perfect fashion. The coup here is Bill Hader as the motor-mouthed Richie. Hader – without ever stealing a scene from his fellow toilers – still dials in all the film’s best laughs, with unteachable, unfakeable comic timing.
Hader can convey utter anarchy of mood with exquisite precision. Bill Murray once made that look easy, and Hader, too, has it in spades. I also liked that this film is confident enough in its material to send up a few of the moments from the first chapter that not even a true fan could love.
Pennywise’s bizarre barn-dance routine gets skewered early in one of Hader’s breakout moments. A slew of in-jokes, references, visual gags and cameos from Peter Bogdanovich and King himself all point to a film that is going about its business with a very acceptable degree of swagger and selfawareness.
Not expecting to particularly like It Chapter 2, I came out very happy. There is plenty of filmmaking craft on the screen, a bunch of pretty good gags, an acceptable amount of well-engineered jump-scares and some truly exceptional detail and design to drink in when your attention for the story falters. The ending is lousy. But that’s exactly as it should be. Once you’ve seen It Chapter 2, you will understand.