It: Chapter Two: Movie Review

It: Chapter Two: Movie Review

Cast: James MacAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill hader, Bill Skarsgard, Jay Ryan, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransome, FinnWolfhard, Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis
Director: Andy Muschietti

The sequel to the phenomenally popular horror movie It presents a sustained disturbing assault on your psyche, while somehow managing to completely repeat itself from its first outing.

In the final part of the adaptation of horror meister Stephen King's seminal work, the Losers club, now scattered, scarred and disjointed, are pulled back to Derry by Mike (an exposition heavy and sullen Mustafa) after it appears Pennywise has reappeared 27 years later.

Dealing with their own issues, as well as an inexplicable memory loss in the intervening years, the group must come together one more time to face their own fears and banish the malignant clown cancer that's blighting their home town.

It: Chapter Two presents almost three hours of psychological assault, trading on primal fears and drowning the audience in noise and bluster - as well as making a strong case for exceptional work by both Bills in the cast.

Yet, in among the meta gags about writers that seems to mock King, there's a feeling "You don't like endings" is a trope which can't be escaped. (MacAvoy's Bill, now a writer is oft mocked for his literary inabilities to climax).

Choosing to present sustained noise and fury, the film seems content to retread a similar pattern proffered by Muschietti's first opening chapter - one of a funhouse with jolts and jump scares rolled out as a series of set pieces, and held together solely by nicely emotional flashbacks and a less weighty current day plight for the gang.

That's not to say they're not successful in among the bluster, more than they're a narrative equivalent of a carny ride through the spooky horrors of the gang's scarred psyche. But despite the noise of the horrific gay bashing that opens the film, the success comes in the quieter moments and the more upsetting set pieces.

A sequence with Pennywise and a young girl under the bannisters of a baseball game is as disturbing and as delightful as it should be - and equally, a sequence in a hall of mirrors offers some viscerally unsettling moments.

But all too often, It: Chapter Two is happy to squander those in favour of bigger, brasher horror set pieces which scream out of the screen as the nightmarish edges are etched into the mind.

And if anything, the lunatic conclusion of the film and the third-act reveal of the origins of Pennywise border on the laughable, as befits the material.

However, there are bonuses to be had among the boos.

While the older version of the Losers' Club are essentially sidelined in favour of flashbacks, Bill Hader offers up a broken fragile version of an older Richie that feels lived in, giving depth to where King's brush strokes have been found wanting. The same can't be said of Jessica Chastain's Bev, a domestic violence victim that barely gets the redemption and boldness her younger version was proffered in the first.

Bill Skarsgaard's Pennywise remains a definitive take on the character, but this time around, while the scares he delivers are genuinely unsettling, the boogeyman feels less developed and more a purveyor of terror than a figure of depth. But when the jolts are delivered as effectively as they are, this is less glaring than it normally would be.

There's no denying an edit may have helped It: Chapter Two, and there's a distinct feeling of disturbing deja vu, but ultimately, this big budget adaptation is a fitting finale to fear.

It offers some psychological terrors to unsettle long after the lights have gone up, and while its themes of trauma and friendship aren't new or original, they're solidly executed in among the carnival atmosphere of carnage.

Ultimately, It: Chapter Two will leave you feeling bereft and potentially divided; it doesn't clown around when the scares are needed, but its propensity for bluster damages the great work done by the first part.