When I saw It (2017) in theaters, I remember being mostly put-off by the film, perhaps inordinately, due to the overwhelming praise heaped on it by my peers and audiences as a whole. Sure, I had an okay time with its creepy production design and raunchy kid-jokes, but it struck me at the time as a Diet Stranger Things—a cheaper copy of an already somewhat-low-calorie pastiche of older coming-of-age films like Stand By Me and The Goonies.
I didn't rewatch the film until the night before watching its sequel—out this weekend—and I was pleasantly surprised with how good a time I had. I still firmly believe that it is not a great film, as it relies on cheap and uncreative scares despite its zany aesthetic and ideas, and under-writes its talented child cast. But it's nonetheless a vaguely charming and breezy kid-horror flick, albeit slightly inferior to this year's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
I also think my initial assessment as a Diet Stranger Things" simply gives Stranger Things too much credit.
It's sequel, Chapter Two, falls into many of the same traps as its predecessor, though unfortunately to an even greater extent. Chapter Two simply has too much story material to bear this time around, and even at nearly three hours, feels rushed and stitched-together as it attempts to give lip service to all of its churning story elements.
"The Loser's Club," as they call themselves, have all gone their separate ways, having fallen out in the summer after their traumatizing encounters with Pennywise, the cosmic-demonic clown (Bill Skarsgård). Chapter Two picks up 27 years after that summer, and all of the kids but one, Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), have mysteriously forgotten what happened in '89. Mike only remembers because he never left their haunted hometown of Derry. He remembers that the gang swore an oath that if "It" ever returned, the Losers would come back to kill it.
After Mike comes across a Pennywise-esque killing, he contacts and quickly manages to convince his long-lost friends to stop their lives and come home under the guise of reminiscing over dinner (a feat that marks the beginning of the film's rushed pace and resulting undercooked plot). Once the gang has re-assembled, they're forced to confront the faded memory of that fateful summer and the lasting effects it has had on their lives. And yeah, they gotta kill "It" too.
The casting of the adult Losers is cosmetically impressive, even if the overloaded script mostly wastes the talent of its loaded cast. Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Bill (James McAvoy), Richie (Bill Hader), Ben (Jay Ryan), Eddie (James Ransone), Stan (Andy Bean), and Mike all feel like perfect extrapolations of their childhood counterparts. McAvoy is the one who really sticks out as a poor fit, visually, and the thought process behind Chastain's casting clearly only went so far as "Who's a talented, well-known redhead?" But the two do a fine job using their skill to capture their respective kids' spirits.
Unfortunately, the script fails to invest in these grown-up Losers even as much as it did in the kids in Chapter One, and we're only given very short snippets of character development for each member. Chapter Two is burdened with a lot to accomplish; as Stephen King fans know, things get a little wild and cosmic at the end of the book, tackling concepts much higher and more abstract than a murderous supernatural clown. Before even getting into any of that, Chapter Two gives itself an Avengers: Endgame-sized platter of plot to work through. Unfortunately, this film doesn't have the intertextual glue of 21 previous entries to rely on as it foregoes concrete characterization in favor of moving the story along, and given that the Losers were already under-developed and under-written in their previous journey, Chapter Two begins to feel very lacking in character and personality even before the halfway point.
Scares this time around are even more hackneyed and obvious—traits which were almost ignorable in the first film thanks to its unique art direction and charismatically creepy Pennywise. But great moments with the clown are fewer and farther between in Chapter Two, and it's only to the film's detriment. Most of the rising action toward the climax involves the Losers running into various alternate manifestations of "It," or experiencing flashbacks of such. The middle act of the film is essentially the same scene, six times in a row, as each Loser goes their separate ways to find a contrived "token" with which to defeat their common enemy, and each meets a spooky obstacle from their past. This repetitive approach is really when the film begins to feel stale, and that's an unfortunate way to lead into your final act, which itself is already a retread of the first film's climax.
It Chapter Two is just messy. As long as it is, every single moment feels too short, as though director Andy Muschetti has crammed a four-hour film into a three-hour one. Rarely do characters' emotional beats feel earned, rather than obligatory steps toward scratching off the "character development" box on the writers' room's checklist of to-dos. Casting is visually acute, but fails to truly capture the vague magic that the kids embodied. The horror element is watered down even further to make way for bland blockbuster plotting. And maybe most disappointing of all, there's less Pennywise.
Essentially, Chapter Two is at least slightly inferior to its predecessor in every category. Everything you liked about Chapter One will be just a little less impressive here, with the added burden of breakneck pacing and just "more movie" to sit through. Personally, I'm happy to view the first film as a flawed but fun coming-of-age story, with a resolved ending in itself that doesn't require a bloated and undercooked revisitation from the adult Losers.