Looking for reviews to this.  Shocked nothing has been posted yet.

I kind of enjoyed it - a lot, even - but not for the reasons the movie wanted me to, I expect. A lot of the writing and acting reminded me of classic "bad" Stephen King, like Maximum Overdrive and the Langoliers, only done on a giant budget. That's a very special kind of entertainment. This combined with the typical "too many cooks in the kitchen" studio blockbuster bungles. It's a weird sort of flimsy popsicle-stick house of creative choices. Never quite seen anything like it.

Seriously though, definitely bad. Way too long with no real plot or character development; just a hodgepodge of overblown scare attempts and lame narrative excuses for them to happen with plenty of awkwardness in between. Just all over the place, where no one sequence really serves as an indicator of what's going to come next. Wasted potential, and a disservice to the few genuine talents who seemed like they were trying their best with what they were given.

Quoted from James McClung I kind of enjoyed it - a lot, even - but not for the reasons the movie wanted me to, I expect. A lot of the writing and acting reminded me of classic "bad" Stephen King, like Maximum Overdrive and the Langoliers, only done on a giant budget. That's a very special kind of entertainment. This combined with the typical "too many cooks in the kitchen" studio blockbuster bungles. It's a weird sort of flimsy popsicle-stick house of creative choices. Never quite seen anything like it. Seriously though, definitely bad. Way too long with no real plot or character development; just a hodgepodge of overblown scare attempts and lame narrative excuses for them to happen with plenty of awkwardness in between. Just all over the place, where no one sequence really serves as an indicator of what's going to come next. Wasted potential, and a disservice to the few genuine talents who seemed like they were trying their best with what they were given.

Very interesting.  I didn't really like the 1st part, so I guess I will skip this one for now.

If you saw the first one, you should see this one, and in theaters if you want to appreciate the scale of it. If you don't care about that, you can wait for home video.

I enjoyed the first one, for the most part. This one is tonally off, the comedy overrides the horror and goes so far as to rob tension before it has a chance to build. With them being adults, the stakes seem smaller, and it repeats many of the same beats of the first movie.

The opening is very offputting. It's a brutal hate crime that pretends to justify itself in the movie's theme of bullying, but it doesn't belong in the movie.

The scares were fewer, mostly because we've seen most of them before, but they managed to deliver better scares than the first a couple of times. Not a great track record, but it's something.

The shining moment for me (hahaha...see what I did there?) was Stephen King's cameo. He was excellent, and I say that with genuine surprise because his previous cameos were horribly acted. I was blown away.

I give it two stars, mostly because the comedy was genuinely funny. I laughed way more in this one, and way, way more than I was scared. It's almost unintentionally a comedy horror, but it takes itself too seriously.

Oh boy...I hate comedy and horror combined!

I'm out!!

Needs to be done properly as a 10 part mini series to do justice to the book. Not interested in either movie and from what I read about them missed nothing

I'm looking forward to The Stand series. Maybe that will get the treatment it deserves.

Quoted from ReneC I'm looking forward to The Stand series. Maybe that will get the treatment it deserves.

If nothing else, I think casting Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg is an excellent choice.

As someone who mildly disliked the first film, I fucking HATED Chapter 2. This film is ridiculous, ineffective, and makes no god damn sense. Chapter 2 is the equivalent of Pennywise giving the audience the middle finger.

For starters, this film has way too many "scares" and "laughs", but it's neither scary nor funny. The attempts at being scary are nonsensical. Are the people standing behind Richie (as he's being attacked by the town statue) really there? Who knows! The filmmakers don't care so why should you? The director seems more concerned with creating creepy scenarios than adhering to any sense of logic whatsoever. You're too busy wondering what's real vs what's Pennywise's fantasy rather than being scared and having fun. If that weren't bad enough, the film simply isn't funny...but it tries every 30 seconds. I feel like the producers took notes from Marvel. Every "scary" scenario or dramatic beat is undercut with a lame joke. Even Richie's stand up presence falls flat and is completely unbelievable.

As for the story, the adults have little to do. Therefore the filmmakers decide to fill the film with cutbacks to them as children. However, some of the flashbacks take place in Chapter 1's timeline thus adding to the confusion. Chapter 2 is almost three hours long, yet there's next to no story. The film is so padded and you feel every minute. I have no idea why the writers decided to separate all of the characters and emulate the miniseries.

Speaking of perplexing, here's a few plot threads that make no fucking sense whatsoever.

-Mike's contraption and IT's backstory,
-why the grown ups are petrified when Mike calls, yet forget why they're scared when they return to Derry
-why Ben goes back to the school to retrieve his artifact when it's been in his wallet the entire time
-why IT attacks an adult (but more on that later)

Now I've never read the books so I can't say how much was lifted from King's novel. But clearly this movie was influenced by King's coke addiction in the 80's.

Here's a much simpler set up: Stanley is the only one who still lives in Derry. He sees Pennywise return and then kills himself remembering the pact. Everyone returns for Stanley's funeral. The group sees Pennywise again and hears new reports about missing kids (maybe Stanley has a kid as well). Annnnd go!

BEGIN SPOILERS

Now let's talk about the ending. That drawn out, lackluster, and confusing ending. Now I actually liked the design of the IT spider. He looked menacing and badass. But the resolution was absolute garbage. I've read better endings in a Goosebumps book. To sum up the ending, the losers club essentially bullies the clown to death. But these kids were bullied themselves. I feel like the first film tried to say something, but this message doesn't even bother with a message.

END SPOILERS

Lastly, there's the opening. Despite what you might think by reading this review, King is one of my favorite authors. He often compares monsters to people and asks which is worse (side note, I HIGHLY recommend watching The Mist if you haven't already). So I'm okay with the idea of an attack on a gay couple. However, the scene was terribly executed. The gay guys are cliched, the rednecks are cliched, and the brutal tone doesn't match the rest of the movie. Worst of all, the film never revisits the idea nor does it explore its townspeople and their backward ways.

It Chapter 2 contains everything I hate about modern day, mainstream horror. Solid D from me.

You should read the book AP. You will see how this story could be done properly and spread out over 10 or 15 episodes keeping the original structure of 1958 for the kids tale then 1985 for the adults. Instead to trying to cram 1,000 pages of stuff into a couple of films.

The best parts of the book are the interludes where Mike has researched old eras of Derry where It was creating mayhem in the 27 year cycle. These would be awesome to have at the start of new episodes in a mini series then take to where the story was up to.

Another one I watched this weekend. I quite enjoyed it. Not really too much scary horror, some pretty lame jump scares and a bit of gore. Some of the CGI is also pretty bad.

It's also very heavy on the comedy, so much so that it sucked the tension out of almost every scene.

I didn’t go in expecting much but I enjoyed it for what it was, and I think it tied the story up well.

The scene with the old woman in the house was the standout. Actually sent shivers down my spine.

Watched this last night after an exhausting day in the kitchen...

I liked this one. Possibly even better than the first one. As a huge King fan I really got a kick out of the the writer that can't write a good ending gag. Especially when delivered by King himself. IMO, the weakest part was the characters not remembering anything from Derry, but it didn't ruin the film or anything.

I would give this one 4 stars out of 5.

I had a strong personal connection to this one, growing up in the 80s with a similarly tight knit crew of misfits bonded by a few heavy experiences no one that young should have to deal with. So this film had me on the hook early on. as a horror film, meh. but just the characters and relationships... and the impact of that when reconnecting years later really hit home.  Loved it for that reason.

thumbs up.

Like many, I've had lots of time on my hands these past couple weeks.  I work from home on an everyday basis, and still am working, but no one else seems to be.

So, I decided to watch this for $2.99 on Amazon Prime.

To say I was disappointed, even assuming I wasn't going to be impressed, is a huge understatement.

There's really so little here, in terms of story.  I didn't even get much in terms of characters, which is strange, because this thing runs almost 2 hours and the actual action is few and far between.

The opening made me think I was watching the wrong movie.  It just seemed so out of place and over the top.

The individual gathering of the items each of the group needed was so weak, in so many ways.  Just silly, really, and much of the FX during these scenes was terrible.

The finale, although visually impressive, was...well, just dumb.

The scares were very few and far between, and I'm not even sure if this was intended to be scary.  More like goofy, really, and the constant attempts at humor seemed so out of place.

I was never a big fan of the novel, but I also don't remember how true to it, this 2 part movie really was, but if it was even close to true to the novel, I see why I never really liked this story.

Overall, I'm kind of shocked at the success both these movies had, but what do I know?

Grade - C-

Gave up on this movie when they were attacked by fortune cookies. Thirty minutes without a laugh, a scare, or the start of a plot was enough for me.