“It: Chapter Two: Proves that Sometimes More Is Less
By Joseph Shelton
In a post “Stranger Things” world, the average viewer has a lot of options for shows in which plucky tykes on bikes fight monsters and develop crushes on each other. So “It: Chapter Two”, coming two years after its preceding chapter, manages to differentiate itself from the crowd somewhat because now the kids have grown up and been replaced by adult counterparts. Unfortunately, with the exception of Bill Hader’s Richie, the adults are less interesting, and certainly less compelling than the kids. In fact, they largely function as simplified versions of the kids, where each each of the kid’s defining traits are now basically the sum total of their character. For Eddie, the foul-mouthed germophobe, the results are at least funny. But for poor Bev, who as a kid was one of the most interesting characters — gentle, empathetic, but with a nicotine-stained rebellious streak — is here reduced to a walking history of abuse. And her only agency here is to choose with of the Losers to fall in love with: the hunky Bill or the now even hunkier Ben.
Part of it is the difficulty in adapting Stephen King’s 1200 page long brick into a concise screen narrative, because even at 3 hours “It: Chapter Two” feels almost fatally truncated. Whether or not you like the King’s stuff (and you probably ought to, because he’s our Dickens), the novel was almost astonishingly ambitious. Conceived as the author’s final word on horror, it’s a coke-fueled meditation on the nature of America’s institutional history of violence, while also being a swooningly nostalgic paean to kids on bikes, long summers, and the freedom of youth. The resulting mix of tones is nothing is hypnotic and undeniably powerful if admittedly overlong.
But “It: Chapter Two” sacrifices some of that ambition to tell a much simpler, less philosophical story. Here all of the stuff about America’s history of violence becomes something much more common and rote. Now its just about killing your own personal demons — in short, another Hollywood ode to self-realization and living your best life. At one point, the demonic Pennywise, an ancient alien god who calls himself “eater of worlds”, tries to scare the grown up Ben by telling him that, even though he is now a fit and handsome millionaire, he’ll always just be a fat little boy. Yawn.
On the positive side, the film is funnier than you expect it to be. But I’d gladly trade it for a few more scares.