copyrightIT: Chapter 2 Review
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The adaptations of Stephen King's works are already a subgenre of terror in itself. IT is perhaps one of the most recognized and admired mainly for the tape that Andy Muschietti premiered in 2017, which greatly improved the bad vibes that Tim Curry had given us with the miniseries of the year 1990. This book contains more than 1,000 pages, for what was a natural process that the cinematographic adaptation of the director of Mamá was divided into two parts, and from there this IT is born: Chapter 2.
The IT structure makes this division much more natural, since, every 27 years, the Pennywise clown returns, so, on the one hand, we have the story of the children who make up what we know as "The Losers Club" and on the other hand the meeting of their adult versions to finish what they started. For this change, Muschietti has surrounded himself with a luxury cast, in which Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy or Bill Hader stand out, which shows that there has been more budget compared to the first film, in which the most prominent actor was Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things.
With almost 3 hours, the film does not stop much with elements that serve as a distraction, such as what has happened to these children since then. We are presented with their trades, what they do for a living ... and direct to action. However, what should be a very direct movie, ends up having enough ups and downs of rhythm. There are certain moments of reflection, of internal search, of flashbacks (all the children of the first installment return, surely in many cases with scenes discarded from the first filming, because time has not been noticed in them) that serve as relief for so much tension, but they extend the film too much
It is true that Andy Muschietti has had to stick to an adapted script that marks almost 100% of the novel, because Stephen King himself has not wanted to add new scenes, and perhaps those who come from the book can not surprise us at any time, beyond seeing captured in real image all those nightmare creatures we imagined. And, the film has to deal with a problem dragged directly from the source material: that Pennywise, as a clown, is much less important.
Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise was one of the best things about the original tape. There had been controversy because his appearance did not quite convince, but as long as we listened to his voice and looked at his interpretation, doubts dissipated. However, the clown form is only one of them. This can be presented through several types of hallucinations, as was already happening to a lesser extent in the first part, but now they directly have the greatest prominence.
It is not something disastrous per se, because Muschietti has a background in horror movies in which he shows that he feels comfortable, but these new creatures sometimes sin of being too obvious that they are generated by the computer, which unquestionably reduces that fear factor Not being very credible. Anyway, probably the percentage of horror scenes is much higher than in the first film because even in those moments of background and flashback we will find moments to be distressed. Specific mention to a scene in an Asian restaurant that is the one we liked the most.
It does not help that this second part is more metaphysical, that it is based on rituals such as Chüd's and that it is more linked to all that shared mythology that Stephen King has been creating throughout his career. In the face of a film adaptation, some things are quite good and others do not make much sense to represent, because they may seem much more absurd embodied in the real image than simply imagined. It is noted that Muschietti is a big fan of King and respects both his opinion as an advisor who has not wanted to take risks, has decided to accept his will and present a film as faithful as it allows a change of the medium. Although that plays against the coherence or cinematographic language itself.
So, IT: Chapter 2 ends up being an amalgam of different possible representations of That. It does not just deepen the children, in their passage to adulthood or in their own adulthood as to justify such duration, and that ends up weighing in the rhythm. Also, removing Bill Hader, which is given more prominence than simply being the comic release playing Richie Tozier, neither James McAvoy nor to a lesser extent Jessica Chastain manages to be at the level that we know both can reach. You can enter a long top of best Chastain roles (in which curiously Annabel's would be in Mom, also from Muschietti), but surely you would not do it in one of McAvoy. Wasting such a talent like that is a disgrace, even more, when there was already preset chemistry because both starred together The disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013).
Is IT: Chapter 2 a bad horror movie? Absolutely not. However, he should have lost a bit of ballast from King's original material to have made it more attractive to the viewer and not get into too deep issues that the author of Maine is trying to be a better film, although that (and not usually what better) make it a worse adaptation.
IT: Chapter 2 is not a bad horror movie, but it has not achieved the same impact as the first. The fact that Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise appears much less makes the main attraction of a horror tape, which is, in the end, the bad presence that makes us get up from the armchair. We can not ignore that in turn appears in other types of representations that in many cases could give for a horror movie of our own, but here we have come to activate our coulrophobia, that the fear of clowns take us out of our boxes. .. and in IT: Chapter 2, the least important is the clown.