Film Review: It: Chapter Two
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It: Chapter 2 which I am going to henceforth refer to as Bigger, Longer, and Uncut arrived in theaters with a massive run time and even bigger expectations. 27 years after Pennywise was seemingly defeated, terrible events start happening again. Mike (Isaih Mustafa) tries to rally the Losers to once again come to Derry and defeat Pennywise once and for all.
It: Chapter Two is a mixed bag that the actors manage to really sell and because of them, the movie is a stressful, fun experience for the most part. As an audience, we root for them not to just defeat the monster, but recover themselves. It’s a worthy enterprise and you would have thought these were the actual grown up verisons of the child actors with how closely they resembled the mannerisms and characteristics of their younger counterparts. Of the ensemble, Bill Hader (Richie) and James Ransone (Eddie) are far and away the MVPs with each getting standout scenes, heartbreaking ones at that, and playing as the best twosome. While this movie is lighter on scares than the first one, it is at times uproariously funny. You have not lived until you have seen a scene like the one where Pennywise drags Ben.
Where It: Chapter Two’s faults lie, outside of the unnecessary repetition and rehashing everyone finding their special item, is that thematically there’s not much there there. Sure one could take away the need to be brave when facing fear or how having friends is nice, but is that all a damn near three hour movie wants to hang its hat on? Maybe, because when the movie attempts to deal with anything remotely tough it flops.
This is most plainly made clear by the various LGBTQ moments. Fans of the book (or Wikipedia readers) knew that the gay bashing scene was coming, but I was shocked at just how poorly it comes off. King has spoken about why he did it but It: Chapter Two does not have the range to do anything with this moment that’s interesting or constructive. It amounts to little more than “oh look the small town folk are homophobic and basically beat up some gays.” This is shirking the duty we all have to stomp out hate by just making it seem like it’s a small town thing. It’s an egregious tone to set for the movie because we get the horror of a hate crime and none of the catharsis, not even when you have a gay character in the mix for the entire film. At least in the book, the perps are arrested, here there’s nothing of the sort. There’s absolutely nothing empowering about any of this, nor is there any introspection from the characters or the town on how to rectify this. Just homophobia sprinkled onto a movie for no good reason.
Worst of all, moments like these, or in the first film with Mike being bullied rely so much on the marginalized groups recognizing and feeling the abject terror of those moments, but if you’re straight and white, what do you take away from them, if you recognize them at all? There was more shock in my theater that the two guys were gay at the beginning than in the hate crime or the reveal that Richie is gay. And speaking of, if you’re going to have a voiceover talking about being proud, maybe have the gay character come out to his friends or to the guy he loves??? It: Chapter Two really failed in this regard and though the movie ended up as an enjoyable experience, it’s weighed down by its faults.
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