CheapBastid

Even with the many good things - cinematography, set design, sound design, character design, kids' acting, kids' banter - it was too much of a mess for me to enjoy.

Andy Muschietti had already proved he works wonderfully in small stretches but tends to fall apart when given a whole movie with Mama. This was even more on display with IT.

My main gripe was that there was no appropriate sense of building dread. There were way too many scenes of Pennywise with a child in his clutches held for too long. You stop fearing the bear when the bear catches you, you just start worrying about the pain of the encounter.

If the creature can just grab and eat at random, what hope did any of the kids have of defeating it? If the one weakness is love and a lack of fear, it wasn't appropriately transmitted by this film. The final 'boss fight' felt random with no real reason for them to have prevailed. That along with the confusion around the floating children (if Bev was save-able were the rest?) made for a weak climax.

Also the building tension device in the story by starting with adults was abandoned, and I (personally) fear it weakened the power of the film.

Sad, I really wanted to like IT.

Azor Ahai

Movie was okay. An assaultive, butt-numbing 2 1/4 hours, it felt considerably longer than that. The kids were fine, I think some are overstating how good their performances were. Richie had a perfect quip for every occasion, it got old. They could've been fleshed out a bit more. They were rather one-note, banter was forced and unconvincing at times. The new Pennywise was fine, still can't beat Curry. The complete excising of any anti-Semitic, anti-gay tones and slurs from the book was odd. The gnawing of the transvestite's armpit was a bit that always stuck with me, was hoping to see it. The added scene in the library was effective. Art direction and score were good. In the end I don't regret seeing it but it's quite forgettable.


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Azor Ahai

Unfortunately the explanation is quite lame. King always did have a problem with his book endings. Pennywise didn't need any kind of "explanation".

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Daytripper

Saw it this afternoon and thought it was one of the best horror films I have ever seen. Dark, chilling, disturbing. It had some truly nightmarish images. All of the kids did a tremendous job acting. And I usually hate most child performances. But they were a natural. The actress who played Beverly was especially a stand out. I gave this a 4.5/5 rating. I'm thrilled it exceeded it's box-office prediction this week. It deserves it.

Osiris3657

Great horror movie, really dug it. Count me among those who normally can't stand films that has children as leads, but this was the exception to that rule. Skarsgard was great as Pennywise too. Can't wait for Chapter 2.

spsimmons

Felt like a Goosebumps movie to me. I'd give it 3 stars

Brack

Liked it a lot, but thought the 80s music at times was overdone and kind of felt like the songs belonged in another movie, and the ending with Henry popping up with his side story felt a little forced, and made more sense in the miniseries (and I assume the book, which I'm reading now).

Dr. DVD

^ In the book

I'm pretty certain the reason they were able to save Beverly was because the creature had not yet killed her. The other kids looked pretty dead.

Troy Stiffler

I was happy to see this. Enjoyable drama. Good scares. A few scenes really got me. The horror was more funhouse-like than the Conjuring-verse movies, which I've also been enjoying.

Looking forward to the adult-aged followup.

Dr. DVD

While it seems most audiences are enjoying this overall, I am seeing a lot of bad reviews on social media from the people in their late teens/early 20s. They find the movie boring and dumb. If their idea of good horror is stuff like Ouija, then I fear for the future of horror movies.

OldBoy

the future and present is bleak. that is why this is first one since The Conjuring in 2013 that i saw in theaters. so much shit. some gems here and there (Don't Breathe, Lights Out), but the rest are garbage and not remotely smart. It was smart and thus went to see...

Daytripper

From boxoffice.com: Pennywise the evil clown indeed earned pennies — billions of them. Horror adaptation "IT" debuted with an estimated $117.1 million, one of the most stunningly unexpected openings in Hollywood history. The Boxoffice.com weekend projection of $81 million for "IT" was among the more optimistic, as the Hollywood Reporter projected “$65 to $75 million,” while users on prediction website Box Office Theory guessed an average of $83 million with the highest prediction from any user being $101 million.

Liver&Onions

Self proclaimed Constant Reader - saw this last night, loved it. Absolutely LOVED and not many others in the full house reacted to that in a knowing way. And a a fat kid growing up in the 80s, I really appreciate Ben in this, going all out with his tightie whiteys.

Dr. DVD

Does that put it behind Deadpool for largest opening ever for a rated R movie?

Michael Corvin

Yeah, I mentioned that I liked that part that to my wife. She was lost when Pennywise said it. I'm guessing there's a deleted scene of Richie using it earlier in the film because I don't recall it being used before PW did.

Yes.

Shannon Nutt

Just for the filmmakers:

Lethal Weapon 2 didn't hit theaters until July 7, 1989. So, EPIC FAIL!

That aside, I really enjoyed the movie.

Liver&Onions

I figured he said it because he was in it.

stingermck

Saw it, loved it. Been thinking about it all evening. So good.

Mondo Kane

I barked at that too. But I quickly forgot the "One Year Later" caption after Georgie's death.

Azor Ahai

What month was it when that marquee was shown? Batman and LW2 were on the same board, they were released 2 weeks apart.

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Michael Corvin

Batman was huge, it was likely on the marquee far longer than two weeks.

islandclaws

Liked this, didn't love it.

It felt like the film was lurching from important scene to important scene with little regard for truly building up the character relationships. The dam building scene was important for a number of reasons and it got scrapped. The Barrens barely seemed to factor in, despite being such a major setting in the book.

Mike Hanlon was wasted and I hated his new backstory. Did Bev get bullied in the novel? Don't remember that but it felt unnecessary. Didn't like the change to Georgie's death because instead of the impact such a violent end had on Bill and his parents we just get a missing person mystery. Bill also didn't feel like the leader he is in the book. And Ben was basically Exposition Character. Also, was Stan even in this? Ha, dude barely did a thing and the actor wasn't very good.

Bowers and his crew felt underused and his lack of racist and anti-Semitic insults felt like scrubbing by the modern PC crowd.

Curry's Pennywise felt so much more menacing for the exact reason why I knew Skarsgard's wouldn't: he looks too malevolent. You lose the juxtaposition of friendly clown/demon beast from space. And the CGI in many of his scenes... yikes.

Richie was annoying and his jokes felt like adults trying to write kid humor and failing. Seth Green was much better.

The leper was also done via bad CGI. There was literally no reason why that couldn't have been practical.

I figured they wouldn't use the classic monsters IT turned into, although we did get a brief glimpse of mummy at the end with Ben, and some werewolf hand action for a second. But I missed seeing the bird with a silver/orange pom pom tongue. Or the leper in the clown outfit.

Guarantee, Henry Bowers will be the Renfeld of the sequel, remaining down below as IT's servant until the next film.

The ending where IT took on various forms was neat but, again, CGI marred the impact.

Bev being a damsel in distress AND waking up from a kiss was beyond dumb.

The worst part is I never felt these guys were a tight, cohesive unit. That's THE backbone of this story and it was rushed and bungled.

I wasn't nuts about the Neibolt House either. The creepy waterhouse from 1990 felt distant, austere, truly chilling whereas this was a dilapidated home on a suburban block. It needed to feel isolated and well, barren.

Tommy Lee Wallace hewed closer to the tone of the book and his version of the Loser's Club is infinitely more believable. People are unfairly bashing that film and stating this new one is far superior. But you'd only think that if you aren't a book reader. Wallace even managed to nail the look and feel of King's Maine better, too.

I could go on but it wasn't all bad. The film looked beautiful. I enjoyed some scenes with Pennywise. The score was mostly solid.

DJariya

I saw a late matinee yesterday.

I liked it and gave it 4 out of 5 stars. But, I didn't think it was that scary to be honest. I thought it had more light and humorous moments between the group, which I didn't mind, but it took away some of the suspense from the inteded "scarier" moments. In a way this came across as more of a big screen version of Stranger Things. Especially since one of the child actors is in the show.

Pennywise looked good, but I actually thought Tim Curry's version from the TV miniseries felt more threatening. This version felt more like an animated character that looked creepy. Curry's felt more like a child killer dressed in clown makeup.

So I don't think it re-invented the genre and was some kind of masterpiece. But, it looked good, had some creepy moments and I enjoyed the banter with the group.

I'd give this a B.

I'll definitely see Chapter Two when that comes out in 2 years or so.

Mabuse

Here's my review of IT in one gif


The trailer was nothing but loud noises and jump scares and that's exactly how the finished film is. If you need to be this loud, and jumpy to make people scared, you suck at filmmaking. That simple.

I was reminded of when Cameron Crow remade Abre Los Ojos and called it Vanilla Sky. He called his film a "cover" of the earlier film, that he made because he loved it so much. This feels like a cover of King's material. Like when a band does a cover of a really familiar song but make a lot of changes. You recognize the tune, and it's amusing to hear what they changed, what they kept, and what they discarded. And then when the song is over you say, "I never need to listen to that again." That's what IT is like.

There's a moment in the film when XTC's song Dear God plays. After the first verse sung in the child's voice I said to myself, "This is where the adult vocal kicks in, wait it's not kicking in, oh they edited it. Okay I guess we're moving on." THAT in a nutshell is what watching IT feels like.

Oh and the haunted house looks like absolute shit. It looks like what it is, a cheap set. It doesn't even look like the kind of architecture built in Maine. More like something from St Louis.

Mabuse

Oh, I did really like the crazy children's show. That was great.