Likes: Just got back from it and loved it. Also got a bobble head Pennywise from the cinema.
Loved that scene where Pennywise dug the smile into his face with his nails.
Faceplams: 0
Just tickles my balls!
Just got back from it and loved it. Also got a bobble head Pennywise from the cinema.
Loved that scene where Pennywise dug the smile into his face with his nails.
tempus est umbra in mente
I feel like I focused on the stuff that I didn’t like, so maybe I should balance that out with some of what I liked... Bill Hader was fantastic, I actually didn’t notice the de-aging CG but I wasn’t looking for it... I thought the scene with Mrs Kersh was great until it got cartoonish, the scene under the bleachers was heartbreaking, I thought the murder of Adrian Mellon was actually great, though I get how it could seem to tackle a topic too serious for the framework of the film... and maybe that contributed to the deluge of balloons feeling off...
The film tried really hard to spell everything out for you on the nose, so it’s admirable they even attempted the ritual of CHUD. I just can’t help but feel like there’s a great film here that just needed to be rewritten
Active Member
Do we get to see the turtle? I won't be seeing it for a while sadly...
tempus est umbra in mente
no, only as a prop Easter egg... to be fair they had a hard enough time wrapping up the ending as it was, this movie couldn’t have handled the turtleOriginally Posted by dlb
Bored
I think those who feel like the murder of Adrian Mellon had no purpose either have not read the book or don't remember: each cycle of It waking up to feed started with a tragedy and ended with one. Mellon's death was the sign that Pennywise was awake again. And of rampant homophobia, of course.
Poor Maturin, ignored again...
tempus est umbra in mente
Exactly, in the book, it takes something dramatic (which often happens to highlight a societal malfunction) to wake "IT" up, and then it goes to sleep with a bang. The metaphor for it being a "generational thing" or "the pendulum of society swinging" is clear in the book, but it doesn't beat you over the head with it. I understand what people may be complaining about though; because this movie isn't what it could have been. It really is just a horror movie with some lingering themes and a strong anchor w/ the book to claim those themes are present, but they're really not.
I think it was part of why they made the change to make Ritchie have implied sexual feelings for Eddie. I think that was their way of establishing the "against IT" and how it manifested here, and as a way to fight back against the concept that the movie could be reveling in homophobia. The problem is, the correlation was sloppy and could have been done better - if they'd just established what IT really meant as a societal menace and what it was that it really fed on.... and that goes into DARK territory.
But it's what made the book great. It wasn't so "on the nose" that it was annoying you with the larger message, but it left it in there. This new film feels TOO "on the nose," but it's avoiding the larger issue in a really evasive way. You can't please everyone, but the new movie really tries to, and sorry, I hate to say it, but I felt it really failed at least for me. I'm glad that other people are loving it though. I'm jealous.
I'm hoping the super-edit directors mega-cut changes my mind.
Last edited by Jinsai; 09-10-2019 at 03:09 PM.
Active Member
If only this was a Netflix or Amazon mini-series instead with Cary Fukunaga directing, minus the generic horror tropes/noise scares dragging it down. It could have been/would have been so much better. Maybe one day in the future.
tempus est umbra in mente
Considering how monumentally Warner Bros. misunderstood the potential here and had to battle a lawsuit to even make the first movie (due to one of the producers I think from the 90 miniseries?), I don't know how likely that is... I had high hopes this would do "it justice." I'm actually kinda mad that I don't think it's ever going to happen, but we saw it get teased as a possibility.
Just tickles my balls!
Here’s the bobble head I got:
https://i.postimg.cc/BvRTCG6S/B18628...-BEC088937.jpg
The cameo by you-know-who in the antiques shop warmed my heart.
Last edited by Erneuert; 09-11-2019 at 12:03 AM.
Active Member
I started the book when the first one came out but really had to fight through it and never finished, yet I see all of your points guys. Sad that this barely scratches the surface although it had such high potential with it's cast and the first movie building it up nicely.
Then again, I think the mini series is close to unwatchable and has aged very badly. So what we got is a great substitute eventhough all the jumpscares fuck with my head aswell, especially when they have such neat performances of IT coming out of the fridge etc. I guess the two movies are still pretty good compared to other recent horor flicks and given the 5 hour time frame. It seems like a miracle that they were even given 3h to close this.
Active Member
It would've been great if the movie shows us that, but it didn't!
I'm 100% okay with it being the incident that wakes Pennywise up, but from what the movie told me it wakes up every 27 years anyway, and what makes it feel even more purposeless is that it never comes up again. It's not in the news the next day (as far as we know), there's no vigil with candles, hightened police presence, and we never see the attackers get arrested or anything. It never comes up in any way or shape again, our lead characters don't even know about it. As far as the movie is concerned, it's like it never happened.
And what made it even more of a headscratcher is that Adrian had asthma and needed his inhaler in the middle of the attack (which I believe was taken from the real life murder that inspired the scene), but at that point we haven't met Eddie as an adult, so it confused me if I'm seeing Eddie being murdered. I mean, the first movie had a character that was using an inhaler all the time, that was his thing, and... this movie opens with a man with an inhaler getting beaten to death. *
*And while I bitched about this opening scene here and everywhere else too, I have to say that I did really enjoy the movie as a whole and I'm so glad we have summer blockbuster horror movies!
Just tickles my balls!
I loved seeing Deran from Animal Kingdom at the beginning tbh. Who, in AK, is actually gay himself, and ends up being a gay basher in “It”. Ironic.
Just tickles my balls!
Pennywise could return in his own solo film, probably an origin prequel:
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a2...nnywise-again/
House Always Wins
”These IT movies did good but now it’s over. They made us so much money! We need to figure out how to continue to capitalize on that. Ah ha! We will do a prequel origin film!”
Just read Skarsgĺrd was the one that said he would want a movie but my above statement stands for the movie execs.
Last edited by Space Suicide; 09-11-2019 at 10:49 AM.
Active Member
Since Chapter 2 was about people trying to remember the events of Chapter 1, they could make a sequel just by having other people try to remember what happened in Chapter 2!
tempus est umbra in mente
This is where I feel like the director also approached so much of the film with the attitude that the audience must be familiar with the story. There's a lot of winks and easter eggs for readers, but it also felt like something that didn't understand how to talk to the audience that was walking in blind.
I think that's where the Adrian Mellon scene felt insane for a lot of people. It fit in perfectly in the book, and the point of it was inescapable, and it was framed into a story that was ultimately much more disturbing than the one told in these movies. The movies have glossed over all the really distressing shit from the book; this was one instance where they seemed to really "go for it" w/ what was described in the book. I hate how this is going to sound really, but after that scene my expectations really rose and I was excited that the movie was going to change it up and really "go for it" all the way with this movie. Then... it didn't.
Active Member
As the above film reviewers said, the movie is a big, sprawling mess. And the director was swinging for the fences, but ultimately came up short. I do appreciate the ambition of trying to cram as much of the book as they could in here to make up for the 1990 miniseries skipping alot of it. But the film suffers alot for it. It completely drags for a loooong time when they all split up and look for their individual tokens. There's no sense of danger here...we know none of them are going to die. We're just waiting for the checklist to be completed so we can get to the next act.
Performances were up & down. Use of CG was up & down. Pacing was up & down. Hader, Skarsgaard (when actually used as @burninglard said) & Mustafa stood out to me and kinda saved the movie. I thought Chastain was fine but wasted here. She can do so much more. And her inital scene leaving her husband was so f'ing stupid and over the top. McAvoy was fine, but his accent was brutal.
Agreed. That scene was good while it stayed subtle. Paul Bunyan scene was stupid as hell even though Bunyan actually looked pretty good. The Stanley spider actually worked for me, but I imagine others prolly hated it. Thought the CG use in the Chinese restaurant was bad, but then I thought Pennywise looked pretty good with all the CG use on him for the finale. His scene in the funhouse with the little kid was great, as was the one under bleachers (prolly his best acting in either movie). Curious that those two scenes basically have no effects until the very end. They're effective bc Skarsgaard is able to breath for a sec & just instill maximum creepiness.
Can someone seriously explain the thought process here? This made no sense to me either and I did not agree with the possible reasons given below in RLM's review.
Movie also suffers from RotK syndrome. JUST END THE MOVIE ALREADY. I counted four separate endings before the credits finally rolled.
I'm glad I saw it b/c I've always loved It & Pennywise like the rest of you, but I can't say I'll be coming back to this much after seeing it this first time. I'd recommend it if you're a fan of the franchise, but don't expect to be actually scared. Anything "scary" in the movie is either entertaining or bad, but never scary. I'd give the movie a C+.
Oh and i almost forgot...
Active Member
PS can someone also explain to me what the hell happened with the Native American ritual & why it failed? I couldn't make out what was being said b/c everyone was screaming & the music/sfx were outshining them in the mix at that point (at least for me in my theater....AMC Dolby Cinema...highly recommended if you're into surround sound & not the other goofy gimmicks they throw at us these days like 3D).
The Virus Inside
I saw this last night. I never read or listened to any reviews of this beforehand and... I hated this movie. This movie was rubbish.
It was all over the place and way too long.
I legitimately enjoyed Chapter 1 a lot, but this one felt like a rehash of chapter 1. All the charm of the first one was gone. It was almost a shot for shot remake of the first, but with adults.
It just went on for too long. It was like mindless action over and over again. The last hour is especially where it started to go off the rails and get very repetitive really fast.
2 hrs into the movie, I went to go pee and there was a couple before me that walked out of the theater ahead of me that totally left the theatre and made a b-line for the exit and weren't coming back, lol.
I didn't jump or get scared once. I felt it was more comedic than scary. Some of the "monsters" were just corny and laughable. I found myself laughing more at the scary scenes than anything.
3/10. maybe a 4/10 at most.
Captain Rustleboots
Wow, i'm kinda surprised to see ETS panning the movie so hard. It wasn't as good as the first one but i absolutely loved it.
Throbbing Member
This, definitely each to their own but I enjoyed this one as much as the first, I thought the majority of the casting was on point and it was creepy as hell and a great sequel.
Active Member
Casting saves this movie for sure. The kids are all great, and the adults are cast well too, especially from the perspective of resembling the kids.
Just tickles my balls!
The first step was to burn their tokens. The second step was to all come together, hold hands and chant “turn light into dark”, trapping It in that satchel. I don’t remember exactly why the third step didn’t work for the Losers, but it didn’t work for the natives because they didn’t “believe it would work” and they all died.
Active Member
Mike did something wrong and/or lied about it. Thats what the rest of the friends were screaming at him and I couldnt make out what it was.
Just tickles my balls!
Yeah I remember Pennywise saying something about him lying. Let me check Wikipedia lol, brb
edit: hmm this is all it says:
The group descends into a massive cavern beneath the sewers and complete the Ritual, but It is able to withstand the Ritual, unaffected. It takes on a giant, spider-like form with Pennywise's head, and pressures Mike into revealing to the Losers that the Natives who attempted the Ritual in the past all perished.
Captain Rustleboots
That's my one gripe about the end, I feel like they should have...you know...explained WHY he escaped. I was confused was all "well i guess we're doin a boss battle now".
tempus est umbra in mente
yeah, the revelation there was that Mike didn't tell them that the ritual didn't work when they tried it before (well, It's still alive, so why would you presume it did, but anyway), and the entity/Pennywise killed all the natives who attempted the ritual
I'm gonna see it again, but the more I think about it... arggggg, they slipped on this.
Bored
In the book, the Ritual of Chud is a sort of psychic battle between Bill and It. If I remember correctly, it involves biting each other's tongue (mentally) and the goal is to make the other let go. It sends Bill throughout the Universe and at one point, Bill encounters Maturin the Turtle.
The Native ritual the kids perform is when they transform their hiding hole into a smokehole in order to induce hallucinations. I think only Mike and Ritchie are able to last long enough to witness the arrival of It million of years ago.
The movie tried to combine two ideas into one that was at least plausible? Eh.
Active Member
I've never read the book, but I just got home from seeing it and I loved it.
I liked how each charecter was returning to come to terms with trauma of some sort. To me that's what the movie seemed to be about, the impact that childhood trauma can have on someone, and how we can revisit trauma and take care of ourselves while we're experiencing those traumatic feelings once we've grown and are able to handle what came at us when we were kids and weren't able to handle it.
I thought it worked well for that. If the ritual had worked, that would have felt contrived, and so when it failed, I was glad to see that.
The letter at the end felt like it was garbage though. I would have preferred if they had left that out.
tempus est umbra in mente
yes, the book is about trauma and nostalgia, adult love vs childish fondness, love in general, especially in how we need the distinction between friendship and "love" for either word to really make any sense... it's also about hatred, anger, sadism, fear, jealousy, and "evil" as much as it's about "good"
I guess I'm saying, I think it's unfilmable... but I thought they could have done a bit better.
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