Film review of It- a critique by Chris Stuckmann

Full text transcript of the film review of It (2017):

It is the feature film adaptation of Stephen King’s famous book We Already Had in 1990 miniseries starring Tim Curry based off of that book, and now we get to see it in theaters. And here we have a bunch of kids who are part of the Losers Club, a bunch of unpopular kids who band together in Derry, Maine, to fight against Pennywise the Dancing Clown, a demonic entity that feeds off of their fear. Before I get into the film, a lot of people have asked me what I think of the nineteen ninety Tim Curry it. The first half is pretty good. I think the kids are great in the It movie. The second half I’m going to say it, it sucks it even the director doesn’t like it. Look it up. The director of it doesn’t even like the second part, it just goes completely off the rails. And I think it’s one of those adaptations that kind of lives in your memory as something that affected you a lot. Maybe the first time you saw it. It’s sort of this pop culture icon that we all remember Tim Curry as Penny Wise, and he is really good in it. I loved him Curry in that mini series, but I just actually we watched it a couple of weeks ago and I don’t really think it holds up. That’s just my opinion of the miniseries. The film, however whole. That’s a different story. I pretty much loved everything about this movie. The movie does justice to the greatest strengths of the novel and wisely omits parts of the novel that didn’t work.

My biggest discrepancy with the novel was Beverly Marsh’s decision to please all of her young friends. If you’ve read the book, you know what I’m talking about. That was just a gigantic WTF moment that didn’t really work for me. It wasn’t in the miniseries. But what didn’t work for me about that miniseries was the adult aspect of it. When you got to see them as adults coming back to Main, this film just focuses on them in their young lives, dealing with the things they’re most afraid of. And it wisely doesn’t spend too much time with each character unless it has something directly to do with their fear. You don’t really learn much about their home lives unless their home lives is integral to learning about what they’re afraid of. This is important for the Beverley character in particular, because her home life is awful and so we get to see a lot more of that. But with each kid, they just focus on whatever they’re most afraid of, whether it’s germ’s or the way their parents died or the way their brother died. They try to find the things that scare them the most. Whatever smells like the most tasty bait for Pennywise, because that’s what draws them in. That’s what draws him out of the shadows. Let’s talk about the kids in this movie and the performers across the board. They are phenomenal. It’s always kind of hard and a little awkward to hate on kids performing in movies.

But gratefully, I don’t have to. They’re all really strong since they’re a bunch of kids that have deemed themselves the Losers Club. There’s a very underdog feel to them since they’re a bunch of kids who are fighting against something that they can’t control and they don’t fully understand. It reminded me of the kids and when they fought against the government or the kids and stranger things, when they fought against the government. But here they’re trying to go up against something that no one else will believe, because when you’re a kid, you often feel like the whole world is out to get you and no adult is going to believe you if you were to tell them. I just saw a murderous, demonic clown in my kitchen sink, can you please help me? And to top it off, the clown won’t show himself to people unless he wants to be seen. So that makes it even harder for them to get any outside help. So they are very much so on their own. And that really gives the film an underdog team spirit. And all of the actors did an amazing job. But it all really does come down to that clown, doesn’t it? Whether or not Penny Wise really works in the movie, is he unintentionally hilarious or is he terrifying? Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise is very scary here. I haven’t seen a film that really, truly terrified me in many years, but I have seen a lot of very suspenseful and enjoyable films. This film is a very creepy, haunted house like experience where it feels like things are going to pop out of you every other scene.

There are very few dull scenes. We go from kids seeing horrific shit to more kids seeing horrific shit, and there’s never really a moment to breathe. You get your scenes where kids are sitting down talking, but it’s always about the plot. It’s always about this clown. And he really does work. Bill Skarsgard is excellent in the shadow of Tim Curry, who is easily the best part of that mini series. And he really pulled it off the makeup and the CGI work that has been done to create. Pennywise really brought him into the year twenty seventeen and I didn’t find it funny at all. In fact, I was smiling quite often at how off-putting he was, his voice, the way they edited around his body. They also found compelling ways to make the CG seamless enough to where you weren’t like, oh, that’s a special effect image. It didn’t really feel that way. Good performances, good creepy villain, really fun characters. The best part of the book and the mini series, in my opinion, were the kids. And this whole film is focused on them. If this director who, by the way, does. A fantastic job with this film, it looks awesome, the editing is so good, all of the creepy scares are really well set up. If he decides to make a second one, which it’s looking like he might, I am there. And that’s coming from somebody who really doesn’t give a shit about the adult part of the storyline.

I’m going to give it an A minus. This is a damn good Stephen King adaptation. I had a blast with it. Please do check out my other Stephen King reviews, as well as my buddy, Skipper Martin and Christopher Phillips and their podcast, the Castle Rock TV podcast. Every week they’re going to thoroughly explore all of the Castle Rock stories and movies connected to the new upcoming Hulu show, leading to the premiere of the series next year. They just finished delving deep into the behemoth novel IT. They’re now heading to the 1990 Tim Curry mini series and wrapping it up with the new feature film. They’re going to have exclusive interviews with Stephen King alumni beginning very soon with Kujo Star D Wallace. If you’re a big King fan like I am and you’re excited for that new series that’s being developed with J.J. Abrams. Check out this link and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. This is not sponsored. Skipper Martin is a very good friend of mine, and I think that he is doing something really cool that not enough people are listening to. And that’s entirely why I’m doing this for him. I think that he is definitely worth a listen if you’re a big fan of podcasts and can check that out. Guys, thank you so much, as always, for watching. Look forward to more reviews very soon. And if you like this, you can click right here and get stuff organized.