The first part of this "It" mini-franchise had something. It may not have been a perfect film by any means, but it did utilize a great cast of child actors and achieve a sort of cultural-zeitgeist "Stranger Things"-esque appeal. When it comes time to bring in the adults and execute the ending of Stephen King's iconic story, however, "Chapter Two" fails miserably in a number of key areas.

For a basic overview, "It Chapter Two" sees the Loser's Club reunited in Derry 27 years after It was presumed dead. Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa),now the town librarian, has called them all back because the evil Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) has sprung upon Derry once again. So, Bill (James McAvoy),Richie (Bill Hader),Eddie (James Ransone),Ben (Jay Ryan),and Beverly (Jessica Chastain) return to their childhood abode to try and finish It off this time around.

There are three major problems with this second part that make it a pretty abject failure...

First and foremost, director Andy Muschietti (and presumably writer Gary Dauberman) do not grasp why, as audience members, we should care about the adult Losers. It's easy to root for a group of young kids chumming around together and then trying to stop a ferocious evil. The reason we care about the adults, however, is because 27 years later they are each dealing with relatable "adult problems" (abuse, addiction, job failure, etc.). King expertly captures this in the novel, whereas this film pays it lip service (and even paltry lip service at that). Here, the only reason we are given to care about the Losers is that "they were once kids". It is very telling that the best parts of "Chapter 2" is when it flashes back to the "kid scenes".

Secondly, the scenes involving the adult Losers having their own "voyage of discovery" just don't make any sense. It was almost more of an excuse to create hideous CGI monsters than it served the plot whatsoever. For example, Bev's meeting with an old woman living in her apartment was legitimately creepy...until it turns into a giant hulking monster straight out of a fantasy piece. In these moments, the filmmakers seemed to forget that "It's" horror is as much psychological as visceral.

Finally, the ending is severely disappointing for fans (like myself) of the King novel. Not focusing on spouses robs the movie of the books' incredible coda, while the final battle with Pennywise/It is almost laughable. To even call it an adaptation of the book's ending is a stretch. While I realize that some of the narrative "punch" would always be taken away by splitting the story into the "kid half" and "adult half", even then this ending doesn't elicit even the slightest emotion or any sense of gravitas.

It seems like what may have happened over the course of these two movies is that the filmmakers were so focused on the mechanics of adapting King's brilliant (yet rather unwieldy) story that they sort of lost track of the ideas behind what made it all work in the first place. This wasn't on display nearly as much in the first part, as that installment was just so much fun, but in this one that failure is as plain as day. Putting the kids in the 80s was a great narrative choice, but other than that almost all the other changes are for the worst.

Perhaps the worst thing I can say about this big-budget production? If forced, I'd still have to call the 1990 TV miniseries "It" adaptation my favorite. While that production certainly had warts of its own, it much more accurately captured both the physical and psychological horror of King's original intent. Besides some great child acting performances, this two-film duo doesn't accomplish either of those things.

Review: Well, that's 3 hours of my life that I won't be getting back! I was really disappointed with this film because the plot is all over the place, and the whole back and forth in time thing, made the movie drag. The horrific Pennywise scenes were a bit random, and I didn't feel the chemistry between the characters like I did in the first film. On the plus side, there are some "jump out of your seat" moments, which were pretty scary, but you don't get to appreciate the attention to detail because it's mostly shot with a dark palette. I did enjoy the first movie, which is why I was so disappointed with this sequel, and I personally don't know why it's nearly 3 hours long. Anyway, in 2016 Derry, Maine, Don Hagarty witnesses his boyfriend Adrian Mellon being murdered by Pennywise after a gang of homophobic teenagers beat them up and throw Adrian off a bridge while leaving the annual Derry carnival. Overhearing a police scanner, Mike Hanlon (Isiah Mustafa) discovers It has returned and calls his childhood friends, Bill (James McAvoy),Eddie (James Ransone),Richie (Bill Hader),Ben (Jay Ryan),Stanley (Andy Bean),and Beverly (Jessica Chastain),back to Derry to honour the promise they made in 1989, to kill It if it came back. While the others travel to Derry with only hazy memories and a sense of dread, Stan slashes his wrists in the bathtub soon after getting the call. The Losers meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where Mike refreshes their memories, while they are tormented by hallucinations and learn of Stan's death. Richie and Eddie decide to leave until Beverly reveals that ever since she was exposed to Its Deadlights, she has been experiencing visions of their deaths should they fail to leave town without fulfilling their promise. Mike takes Bill to his library abode and shows him, via a drug-induced vision, that they can stop It for good. After the others agree to perform the ritual, Mike explains that the ritual requires seven personal items from there past to be sacrificed. Henry Bowers, who survived being pushed into the well at the Neibolt house and was arrested for murdering his father in 1989, escapes from a mental institution with help from It. Meanwhile, in the Losers old clubhouse, Mike advises the others to find their artefacts by retracing their steps following their falling out after first entering the Neibolt house. Beverly finds Ben's love letter at her old home, still believing Bill wrote it and encounters It posing as Mrs. Kersh. Ben recalls his childhood encounter with It at high school before realising his artefact is the yearbook page Beverly signed which he kept in his wallet. Both Richie and Eddie recall their own personal encounters with It while retrieving their artefacts, a game token from an abandoned arcade, and an inhaler. Pennywise taunts Richie about his sexuality, leading to him deciding to leave again and reconsidering again after recalling Stan's bar mitzvah, before menacing Eddie in the guise of the Leper, but flees when Eddie standing up to It causes the being to shrink in size. Bill finds his childhood bicycle and recovers the paper boat from the storm drain where Georgie was killed. The group descends into a cavern beneath the sewers, and they perform the ritual in the remains of the meteor that brought It to Earth ages ago. The ritual appears to work in trapping the Deadlights in the sealing jar, but they escape after It emerges from the jar in a giant spider-like form. Will the Losers finally kill It with there new ammunition? You have to watch the 3-hour epic movie to find out! Although they used established actors in this movie, and they gave each of the characters some depth, I didn't feel the emotion that I did in the first film. Also, the storyline didn't seem to flow properly because it looked like various sketches pieced together. In terms of a horror film, it didn't have the same shock value as the first film, and for a movie in this genre with a 15 rating, I don't know what type of audience this was made for. With that aside, it still made a profit so I wouldn't be surprised to see a third movie in this franchise. Disappointing!

Round-Up: This movie was directed by Andy Muschietti, who also brought you Mama and It. With only 3 major releases, he has done a good job, in terms of box office takings, and now that he's working with established actors, the only way is up for this newcomer. With 9 movies in development, which include Dracul, Time Machine, Attack on Titan, The Howling, Robotech, and DC's, The Flash, which is due to be released in 2022, he's obviously become a bankable director that studios are willing to take a risk with.

Budget: $79million Worldwide Gross: $473million

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror Cast: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgard, Javier Botet and Xavier Dolan. 4/10

I personally didn't enjoy IT 2017 so I didn't have much hope for part 2 but I was expecting them to at least tone down the CGI instead they went overkill with it no imagination used here just in your face flashy CGI effects that look fake and plastic the only thing frightening about this movie is that sadly because it made money at the box office more Stephen King books are going to get remakes and it won't be long before we get an all CGI Maximum Overdrive movie remake.

There are more scenes with Pennywise transforming and creating twisted ways to mess with the returning losers club members but sadly they are all done with CGI and are all standard copy and paste scenes from the original mini series and when the movie finally gets to it's climax the makers of this "Horror Movie" think by simply making Pennywise bigger it instills more fear into the audience when really all it does is scream CGI and all the suspence is watered down to bigger pixels on screen than there where before "Terrifying"

The only and I do mean only saving grace this movie has is the cast they all do a great job on screen especially considering they have to pretend to be scared and flee in terror from a green screen it's not the actors fault this movie was a big let down.

I recommend watching the original IT mini series if you haven't already seen it Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise is the reason why people who grew up in the 90s have a fear of clowns because a great actor in the right role can make all the difference in a movie Tim Curry will always be Pennywise no matter how many remakes are made just like Judy Garland will always be Dorothy in The Wizard of OZ there performance makes the movie so memorable and it can't be re-created no matter how much CGI you use.