IT Chapter One
IT
Directed by Andy Muschietti
Written by Stephen King (Novel), Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, Gary Dauberman
I have a checkered history with Stephen King's famous story about a killer clown in Derry, Maine. I caught the first five minutes of the 1990 miniseries with Tim Curry as the clown and from that I developed a fear of clowns that has lasted probably fourteen years, the residue of which I'm still dealing with today. Some years ago I went back to watch the miniseries all the way through; after passing the five minutes that gave me such vivid nightmares as a child I found the miniseries was just laughable, it isn't really scary in the slightest despite all of it's attempts.
When the new film was announced I thought "oh, it's just another remake of a classic and it isn't going to be any good." My mother is a huge Stephen King fan and really wanted to see it so I bit the bullet and saw it with her, all of the positive reviews of the film swaying me. To prepare I listened to most of the unabridged audiobook from Audible, narrated by Steven Weber (check it out, it's 45 hours long but it's totally worth it), and I was properly hyped to watch it. To be clear I don't think this is a bad movie, in many ways it's a very good adaptation, but I think it failed at scaring me and it is far from a great movie.
The film mainly follows Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), a boy with a stutter whose brother disappears one day. Over the year there are several young children who disappear without a trace and the town is placed under a strict curfew to try and combat the disappearances. Bill is soon joined by his friends Eddie Kasprak (Jack Dylan Grazer), a boy suffering from Munchausen-by-proxy, Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), a motormouth, and Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff), a boy in a conservative Jewish household. They are soon joined by a portly boy named Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), one of the town's few black children Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), and a girl named Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), whose father abuses her. The kids are all being bullied by a kid named Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his crew and they all meet the titular It in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard) and unite to end It's reign of terror.
This film focuses on only half of the book and the miniseries, and what I would argue is the strongest part of both of those which is when the characters are all kids. There's something about being a kid and enduring the evil of Pennywise that makes this section of the story so much more engaging. Throughout the novel I grew to love Big Bill, Ritchie, Ben and the whole crew.
I know it isn't exactly fair to compare a two and a half hour movie to a book that is something like twelve-hundred pages (or over two whole days in audiobook form), but I have to in the interest of being thorough, I'll do my best to avoid spoilers.
The biggest area where the film diverges from the book is in the character backgrounds. The book deals with very heavy subjects such as racial violence, sexual assault, domestic violence, childhood trauma, and bigotry. While the film hits many of these notes it cuts several in what I assume is to cut time, but it negatively affects several characters. Mike Hanlon, for example, deals directly with racial discrimination and violence. As one of the only black families in the book he and his father are directly affected by racial hatred and this plays a major role in his character. Bowers and his father bully and abuse his family because of their skin color and this is all but excised from the 2017 film, and because of this he loses almost all of his character, in this movie he is basically the token black character which is absolutely not what he was in the book. The Black Spot, without going into too much detail, is a horrifying account Mike's father gives of the extent of hate in Derry. This is glossed over in the film.
A big part of the book is showcasing just how awful a place Derry is. The town has a dark past of abuse and is filled with despicable people. This is why It is drawn to the place, fanning the flames of the horrible things the people do. Almost as much of the book is dedicated to the evil that has taken place in the town as it is to It's actions. The Black Spot, a slaughter of a prohibition-era gang, a caster explosion killing over one-hundred people; these are all shown in explicit detail. The film frames these more as a It's doing with the people acting as almost tertiary characters to the events where the opposite is the case in the book.
The pacing of the book is pretty slow. A lot happens, for sure, but there is a lot of time dedicated to slowly building up to the major events; we know, for example, that The Black Spot is a major event in the town's history but we don't know what actually happened until about the middle of the book and it is suitably gruesome. Many of the chapters in the audiobook are over an hour long for a single event. Obviously they couldn't fit most of this into this movie, the miniseries is almost five hours long and they couldn't get all of it in. But the film's pacing just stops dead in it's tracks early on to show each kid's encounter with Pennywise and this is probably a twenty minute stretch where nothing happens but for each kid encountering Pennywise, getting the crap scared out of them, escaping, then moving on to the next one. I don't know what the best way to show all of this is but it grinds this film's pace to a halt when it happens.
I also have to comment on the small moments of comic relief that occur. I understand the purpose of this relief but it could have been handled much better. The most egregious example of this occurs early on when Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) is sailing his paper boat through the rain-filled gutter and smacks into a wooden roadblock. It was in the first trailer and I laughed out loud when I saw it then and it's still hilarious in the movie. Why was this included? It's just funny and comes into conflict with the whole mood of the scene.
Also, and this is a very small complaint that doesn't affect my opinion of the film, there is a reference to an in-joke the Loser's Club has that is very out of place. In a scene with Ritchie, Pennywise says "beep beep, Ritchie." This is a phrase the club uses when Ritchie starts talking and won't shut up, throughout the book the group uses this and it's a funny thing but it isn't anywhere in the movie but for this one scene. I know it's just a bit of fan service but it distracted me from the scene and made me think "how would Pennywise know about that?" It doesn't make sense in the context of the movie. If that sounds like a petty complaint that's because it is, it's just something I noticed and had to comment on.
I'm very mixed about the casting of this movie. I want to start with who I think are the best, those being Bill and Bev. Bill was Jaeden Lieberher was great as Bill. His stutter was downplayed a bit from the book which I think was a wise choice and he was consistently great. He displays a lot of emotion and never overacts to my recollection. He is what I imagined Bill being liked as I listened to the book and I don't have any problems with his performance. Sophia Lillis was also great as Bev. I was a bit shakey about her when she was first introduced but she quickly grew to rival Bill as my favorite character. She deals with a lot in this film and she handles it all with skill, I again couldn't find any issues with her performance.
I think the character I've had the most trouble deciding if I like or not is Finn Wolfhard's Ritchie Tozier. Of course I love Wolfhard as Mike in Stranger Things and he works his butt off here. He captures the annoying and foul mouthed spirit of Ritchie from the books but I have some problems with it. I know it's a cop-out to say but he doesn't really feel like Ritchie. When I heard that he would be in this movie I thought for sure he would be Bill, he plays that same kind of character in Stranger Things. He just doesn't really seem like Ritchie and at present I struggle to find a way to find the words to explain why, it could just be my own fault but something just felt off as I was watching him.
The rest of the supporting cast is more forgettable than anything and I think I chalk this up to cuts to their backgrounds. As previously discussed, Mike Hanlon is little more than the token black character and Chosen Jacobs is obviously trying but he isn't given anything to work with. Wyatt Oleff is basically just the Jewish kid, that's essentially his whole character. Jack Grazer is given a bit more to work with and does a decent job but lacks much in the way of a deeper character than the sheltered one. Nicholas Hamilton's Henry Bowers isn't given much time to develop. In the book he is basically the stock bully character that always seems to appear in King's writing but King shows how he grew up in a broken home with a mentally ill and abusive father and he shows how Bowers grew to be such a bully and an awful person. They hint at his abusive father but it doesn't do enough to flesh him out as a character and Hamilton's performance is subsequently made to be more cartoonish and an encounter he has with Pennywise later essentially comes out of nowhere.
But the performance everyone comes to see is Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise. After Tim Curry's turn at the clown he had some big shoes to fill (pun most certainly intended) and you can tell he tries very hard to honor the character. He does his best and while I think he mostly does a good job I feel like he is a bit more cartoonish than is warranted. I know how silly that sounds, a supernatural killer clown is too cartoonish. But it really does feel too over-the-top for me. Just watch the infamous Georgie gutter scene to see what I mean. It's a bit too silly to really take seriously, but I do have to give him some leeway because it is such an out-there character that is both terrifying and silly at the same time. I don't think he's awful, to be clear, but he's far from perfect.
The cinematography is generally pretty good. Hardly anything especially noteworthy but it is effective. I love how the house on Niebolt street is shot and a specific shot where Pennywise is menacingly striding towards the Loser's Club while his claws grow from his hand is especially moody and effective.
The music is pretty forgettable. Three days after having seen the film I can't recall a single use of score or licensed music. This is the case with most films I find but worth noting I think.
I want to reinforce that I don't think this is a bad movie, lord knows that there for every 'just alright' horror movies there are at least twenty flat out awful ones. I've very conflicted about it but I can recognize just how much heart and soul went into the movie and I appreciate it all, it isn't exactly an easy adaptation to do and you can tell everyone was very passionate about it. There are just too many story, pacing and character issues that mar an otherwise promising film to make this an exceptional movie. If you like horror or the source material I'd say give it a watch, but if this review or the trailers don't capture your interest I'd say you should give it a pass.
When the new film was announced I thought "oh, it's just another remake of a classic and it isn't going to be any good." My mother is a huge Stephen King fan and really wanted to see it so I bit the bullet and saw it with her, all of the positive reviews of the film swaying me. To prepare I listened to most of the unabridged audiobook from Audible, narrated by Steven Weber (check it out, it's 45 hours long but it's totally worth it), and I was properly hyped to watch it. To be clear I don't think this is a bad movie, in many ways it's a very good adaptation, but I think it failed at scaring me and it is far from a great movie.
The film mainly follows Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), a boy with a stutter whose brother disappears one day. Over the year there are several young children who disappear without a trace and the town is placed under a strict curfew to try and combat the disappearances. Bill is soon joined by his friends Eddie Kasprak (Jack Dylan Grazer), a boy suffering from Munchausen-by-proxy, Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), a motormouth, and Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff), a boy in a conservative Jewish household. They are soon joined by a portly boy named Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), one of the town's few black children Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), and a girl named Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), whose father abuses her. The kids are all being bullied by a kid named Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his crew and they all meet the titular It in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard) and unite to end It's reign of terror.
This film focuses on only half of the book and the miniseries, and what I would argue is the strongest part of both of those which is when the characters are all kids. There's something about being a kid and enduring the evil of Pennywise that makes this section of the story so much more engaging. Throughout the novel I grew to love Big Bill, Ritchie, Ben and the whole crew.
I know it isn't exactly fair to compare a two and a half hour movie to a book that is something like twelve-hundred pages (or over two whole days in audiobook form), but I have to in the interest of being thorough, I'll do my best to avoid spoilers.
The biggest area where the film diverges from the book is in the character backgrounds. The book deals with very heavy subjects such as racial violence, sexual assault, domestic violence, childhood trauma, and bigotry. While the film hits many of these notes it cuts several in what I assume is to cut time, but it negatively affects several characters. Mike Hanlon, for example, deals directly with racial discrimination and violence. As one of the only black families in the book he and his father are directly affected by racial hatred and this plays a major role in his character. Bowers and his father bully and abuse his family because of their skin color and this is all but excised from the 2017 film, and because of this he loses almost all of his character, in this movie he is basically the token black character which is absolutely not what he was in the book. The Black Spot, without going into too much detail, is a horrifying account Mike's father gives of the extent of hate in Derry. This is glossed over in the film.
A big part of the book is showcasing just how awful a place Derry is. The town has a dark past of abuse and is filled with despicable people. This is why It is drawn to the place, fanning the flames of the horrible things the people do. Almost as much of the book is dedicated to the evil that has taken place in the town as it is to It's actions. The Black Spot, a slaughter of a prohibition-era gang, a caster explosion killing over one-hundred people; these are all shown in explicit detail. The film frames these more as a It's doing with the people acting as almost tertiary characters to the events where the opposite is the case in the book.
The pacing of the book is pretty slow. A lot happens, for sure, but there is a lot of time dedicated to slowly building up to the major events; we know, for example, that The Black Spot is a major event in the town's history but we don't know what actually happened until about the middle of the book and it is suitably gruesome. Many of the chapters in the audiobook are over an hour long for a single event. Obviously they couldn't fit most of this into this movie, the miniseries is almost five hours long and they couldn't get all of it in. But the film's pacing just stops dead in it's tracks early on to show each kid's encounter with Pennywise and this is probably a twenty minute stretch where nothing happens but for each kid encountering Pennywise, getting the crap scared out of them, escaping, then moving on to the next one. I don't know what the best way to show all of this is but it grinds this film's pace to a halt when it happens.
I also have to comment on the small moments of comic relief that occur. I understand the purpose of this relief but it could have been handled much better. The most egregious example of this occurs early on when Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) is sailing his paper boat through the rain-filled gutter and smacks into a wooden roadblock. It was in the first trailer and I laughed out loud when I saw it then and it's still hilarious in the movie. Why was this included? It's just funny and comes into conflict with the whole mood of the scene.
Also, and this is a very small complaint that doesn't affect my opinion of the film, there is a reference to an in-joke the Loser's Club has that is very out of place. In a scene with Ritchie, Pennywise says "beep beep, Ritchie." This is a phrase the club uses when Ritchie starts talking and won't shut up, throughout the book the group uses this and it's a funny thing but it isn't anywhere in the movie but for this one scene. I know it's just a bit of fan service but it distracted me from the scene and made me think "how would Pennywise know about that?" It doesn't make sense in the context of the movie. If that sounds like a petty complaint that's because it is, it's just something I noticed and had to comment on.
I'm very mixed about the casting of this movie. I want to start with who I think are the best, those being Bill and Bev. Bill was Jaeden Lieberher was great as Bill. His stutter was downplayed a bit from the book which I think was a wise choice and he was consistently great. He displays a lot of emotion and never overacts to my recollection. He is what I imagined Bill being liked as I listened to the book and I don't have any problems with his performance. Sophia Lillis was also great as Bev. I was a bit shakey about her when she was first introduced but she quickly grew to rival Bill as my favorite character. She deals with a lot in this film and she handles it all with skill, I again couldn't find any issues with her performance.
I think the character I've had the most trouble deciding if I like or not is Finn Wolfhard's Ritchie Tozier. Of course I love Wolfhard as Mike in Stranger Things and he works his butt off here. He captures the annoying and foul mouthed spirit of Ritchie from the books but I have some problems with it. I know it's a cop-out to say but he doesn't really feel like Ritchie. When I heard that he would be in this movie I thought for sure he would be Bill, he plays that same kind of character in Stranger Things. He just doesn't really seem like Ritchie and at present I struggle to find a way to find the words to explain why, it could just be my own fault but something just felt off as I was watching him.
The rest of the supporting cast is more forgettable than anything and I think I chalk this up to cuts to their backgrounds. As previously discussed, Mike Hanlon is little more than the token black character and Chosen Jacobs is obviously trying but he isn't given anything to work with. Wyatt Oleff is basically just the Jewish kid, that's essentially his whole character. Jack Grazer is given a bit more to work with and does a decent job but lacks much in the way of a deeper character than the sheltered one. Nicholas Hamilton's Henry Bowers isn't given much time to develop. In the book he is basically the stock bully character that always seems to appear in King's writing but King shows how he grew up in a broken home with a mentally ill and abusive father and he shows how Bowers grew to be such a bully and an awful person. They hint at his abusive father but it doesn't do enough to flesh him out as a character and Hamilton's performance is subsequently made to be more cartoonish and an encounter he has with Pennywise later essentially comes out of nowhere.
But the performance everyone comes to see is Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise. After Tim Curry's turn at the clown he had some big shoes to fill (pun most certainly intended) and you can tell he tries very hard to honor the character. He does his best and while I think he mostly does a good job I feel like he is a bit more cartoonish than is warranted. I know how silly that sounds, a supernatural killer clown is too cartoonish. But it really does feel too over-the-top for me. Just watch the infamous Georgie gutter scene to see what I mean. It's a bit too silly to really take seriously, but I do have to give him some leeway because it is such an out-there character that is both terrifying and silly at the same time. I don't think he's awful, to be clear, but he's far from perfect.
The cinematography is generally pretty good. Hardly anything especially noteworthy but it is effective. I love how the house on Niebolt street is shot and a specific shot where Pennywise is menacingly striding towards the Loser's Club while his claws grow from his hand is especially moody and effective.
The music is pretty forgettable. Three days after having seen the film I can't recall a single use of score or licensed music. This is the case with most films I find but worth noting I think.
I want to reinforce that I don't think this is a bad movie, lord knows that there for every 'just alright' horror movies there are at least twenty flat out awful ones. I've very conflicted about it but I can recognize just how much heart and soul went into the movie and I appreciate it all, it isn't exactly an easy adaptation to do and you can tell everyone was very passionate about it. There are just too many story, pacing and character issues that mar an otherwise promising film to make this an exceptional movie. If you like horror or the source material I'd say give it a watch, but if this review or the trailers don't capture your interest I'd say you should give it a pass.
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