Pennywise is back for more thrills and spills – but at nearly three hours, his reign of terror begins to take a toll.
Two years after the huge success of It, director Andy Muschietti has reunited the Losers club only now theyre 27 years older and dealing with their same issues but on a bigger scale; failing careers, abusive relationships, and crippling self-doubt.
The years have seen them choose to forget the horrors of 1989 and theyve all made it out of Derry, except for Mike Hanlan (Isaiah Mustafa) who has remained in the Maine town, living in the attic of the library and waiting, knowing, that Pennywise will be back.
And he is.
We first see It at the beginning of the film finishing off a young gay man who has been beaten almost to death and thrown over the bridge – real-life horrors including homophobia, domestic abuse, and alcoholism, remain at the forefront of It – and Mike realises its time to call the Losers and beg them to return and help him defeat Pennywise once and for all.
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This leads to the first of many unnecessarily long montages that allow each of the Losers to get a moment on screen, as we find out where their lives have taken them.
This allowance for individual threads of story reoccurs throughout the film and you begin to realise exactly why this film is two hours and 45 minutes long.
The jumps you want from a blockbuster horror are there, and the special effects team need a pay rise for bringing some of these truly horrific moments to life, while the script is full of quips.
A sign of a good director is when you know the scare is coming but it stills leaving you screeching and turning your head away in fear, and Muschietti has done this to great effect; the scene with Pomerian is the perfect example of knowing whats coming but still being absolutely s**t scared.
James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain take on the role of adult Bill and Beverly and prove exactly why they are big screen superstars, taking the patchy script and making you care about these characters – even if we never do find out if Bill ever writes an ending to a book that people love, or if Beverlys abusive husband ever gets his comeuppance – while Bill Hader is perfect as Richie, part black comic and part screwball.
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But it also all starts to feel a little bit silly.
To defeat It there is a Native American ritual they must undertake, and theres something about three globes of light – or deadlights – and the chant turn light into dark.
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