(This review may contain spoilers).
While I haven’t read the book this movie is based on, or seen the original movie, I still found this film easy to watch, if very dark.
There wasn’t really a lot of diversity in the town, which was disappointing. And there were some cliched scenes and storylines. On the other hand, though, it was good to see how the film took the time to develop each of the characters in the movie, at least the boys who formed the ‘Losers Club’. I liked how realistic their friendship was, but I was disappointed in the love triangle that I felt wasn’t really necessary, especially since I had the impression Bev was older physically than the boys.
I was able to empathise really easily with Bill. The snippet of his closeness with his little brother at the beginning was all too brief, but that relationship permeated the movie and made it easy to relate to Bill in a way that would have been more difficult without that.
I really didn’t like Eddie’s mother. I’m not sure if she was really supposed to be there for comic relief, but she dropped right down in my estimation (and she wasn’t very high to begin with) after the way she spoke to Beverly.
Pennywise was really creepy, especially considering it sounded like an ordinary, harmless clown at times. However, there were quite a few times the film seemed very over the top, especially in the first scene with Geordie and Pennywise. The movie didn’t shy away from gore, but there was no sense of less is more. And I didn’t feel there was much in the way of subtlety when it came to what the group experienced individually. The scene at the start didn’t seem to connect to the ‘rules’ that cropped up later.
It was good that the elements of friendship were explored quite thoroughly in this film and I was really emotionally connected to and rooting for the main characters. But although there seemed to be some attempt made to humanise Henry, I still couldn’t feel more than a tiny bit of sympathy for him. And he seemed a lot older than fifteen.
I do intend to watch the next film/s in this franchise in the future, even if I don’t plan to watch this film again in the near future.
If you get a chance to read the book, do it. It is a glorious exploration of childhood friendship.
A scary movie for sure. Nice review.