☆☆☆
There's a cinematic recipe to It, which goes something like:
1 part The Goonies
1 part Poltergeist
2 parts Stand By Me
3 parts Stranger Things
Dash of Carrie
Pinch of The Shining
Mix thoroughly, and bake until almost but not quite done. Best when served warm with a little slice of ham and a bit of cheese.
It's tasty enough and a lot of people will love it -- but for some, the experience will be both underwhelming and oddly unsatisfying, like being served a Big Mac in a fancy restaurant. There's a particular irony to its almost unsettling similarity to the TV series Stranger Things, which, oddly enough, was deeply influenced by It in the first place.
I've never been enough of a fan of Stephen King's particular brand of writing to have tackled the 1,138-page behemoth of It the novel, nor did I watch the previous filmed version, which was presented as a two-part TV movie. So, I was essentially unfamiliar with the basic plot of It other than knowing it was about a malevolent clown. I walked into the theater prepared for and expecting a dark, forbidding horror film. I didn't expect a gentle and tender coming-of-age story dripping in the nostalgia of an earlier, simpler time.
Funnily enough, that simpler time in It is 1989 -- a turbulent and pivotal time, to be sure, but hardly simple; the time of Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, of the Exxon Valdez and the Afghanistan war, of Cold War and nuclear tensions, of AIDS and the savings-and-loan crisis. It's far from the sun-dappled world of the 1950s, but then, I suppose part of the point is that the sun-dappled world of the 1950s was not as lovely as it seemed in retrospect, either. (The novel is set in the late 1950s.)
But, few films have been as insistent about the almost magical power of youthful innocence as It does -- really, the only one that comes to mind is Stephen King's own Stand By Me, and there are times in It when you might as well be watching that earlier, superior film.
There's a group of misfit kids who hang out together and like each other. There's a horrifying truth about the violent insanity of life waiting for them to discover. There's a small town that they know they will have to leave. But for nowhttp://thereinthedark.blogspot.com/2017/09/it.html?m=1, there is this group of swell friends, best buddies who will do anything for each other.
One of them is Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), whose little brother Georgie begins the movie excited about trying out a paper sailboat. (It's sweet and mildly silly that the filmmakers think that kids were playing with paper boats in 1989.) Bill is sick in bed so can't go out with Georgie, and when the boat gets stuck in a storm drain, it's returned by a sinister, killer clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård, under a ton of makeup and augmented with lots of CGI), who then kills little Georgie. That should be the setup for something out of Nightmare on Elm Street, another one of the 1980s movies that this film name-checks, but it never really gets going on that front.
Pennywise the Clown, who in actuality is some sort of shape-shifting monster, is creepy and sometimes icky, to be sure, but he's not all that scary. He's a sinister threat, but the film's presentation of him is mostly a setup for the loving depiction of childhood group dynamics. The movie is at its best when it shows the group of kids interacting with each other. That leaves It feeling uncertain if it wants to be a horror film or a sweet-natured reflection on youth. And even within its horror ambitions, does it want to be a character-driven or an effects-driven sort of movie? It can never decide on any one of these approaches long enough, so it all feels disjointed, curiously unmoving and disappointingly un-frightening.
It is a film that wants to give you nightmares but makes so much effort to mix the horror in with sweet-natured, humor-laden observations about youth that the scary stuff is watered down, and ends up mostly being successful when it's accompanied by very loud bursts of music and sound effects. It has to settle for jump scares rather than real dread.
The acting by the kids is uniformly terrific, particularly Sophia Lillis as Beverly, the sole girl in the group, Jeremy Ren Taylor as Ben, the "fat kid" who has a crush on Bev; and Jake Dylan Grazer as hyopchondriac Eddie. The rest of the child actors are fine, and Skarsgård is best in his first scene attacking Georgie in a sewer. Most of the rest of the time, his performance is overpowered by the incessant use of CG effects to depict the malevolent character.
The story is fine, the kids are really wonderful, and while It delivers on some of the visceral thrills, the movie never meshes its two parts effectively, and the final showdown between the kids and the clown is the kind of overblown, overproduced and murky sequence that mostly leaves the audience wondering why characters are doing what they're doing, and who is supposed to be doing what to whom. The big confrontation is the worst thing about It. That climax plays a lot like a creepier version of a Harry Potter film.
The best parts of It are the elements that seem feel like a remake of Stand By Me -- the easy rapport between the kids, the way they are determined to find things adults can't or won't find, and the way their own little skirmishes can become minor wars -- not to mention nostalgic talk about the entertainment of the time.
I confess I had no idea, until the final title card appeared, that It is actually the first of two parts. That left me feeling mildly better about the movie, because a lot of motivations, ideas and actions are not explained in any satisfying ways in It. The assumption is the important characteristics will pan out when Part II shows us the kids 27 years later.
Stephen King fans should be pleased about that response. Everyone else, I'm not so sure. Fitting the filmmaking trend of the day, it's not a standalone film, and if motivations, character development and even some plot points (like the origin and purpose of the clown) are unclear, it's because the studio and the filmmakers assume no one will complain that it's unfinished because, hey, it's a franchise!
But that makes it a less than entirely satisfying movie on its own. Neither the best nor the worst Stephen King adaptation, it's the first part of a longer-term project, and can only be judged on its own as well and as fairly as you'd judge a movie if you walked out halfway through.
It as it is is more or less fine. It's not particularly effective as horror, at least not the kind that gets under your skin, and it's only mildly thrilling at times. It works best solely as a nostalgic reminiscence of an easier time that, in fact, wasn't easier at all.
Viewed 9/9/17 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
2000
1 part The Goonies
1 part Poltergeist
2 parts Stand By Me
3 parts Stranger Things
Dash of Carrie
Pinch of The Shining
Mix thoroughly, and bake until almost but not quite done. Best when served warm with a little slice of ham and a bit of cheese.
It's tasty enough and a lot of people will love it -- but for some, the experience will be both underwhelming and oddly unsatisfying, like being served a Big Mac in a fancy restaurant. There's a particular irony to its almost unsettling similarity to the TV series Stranger Things, which, oddly enough, was deeply influenced by It in the first place.
I've never been enough of a fan of Stephen King's particular brand of writing to have tackled the 1,138-page behemoth of It the novel, nor did I watch the previous filmed version, which was presented as a two-part TV movie. So, I was essentially unfamiliar with the basic plot of It other than knowing it was about a malevolent clown. I walked into the theater prepared for and expecting a dark, forbidding horror film. I didn't expect a gentle and tender coming-of-age story dripping in the nostalgia of an earlier, simpler time.
Funnily enough, that simpler time in It is 1989 -- a turbulent and pivotal time, to be sure, but hardly simple; the time of Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, of the Exxon Valdez and the Afghanistan war, of Cold War and nuclear tensions, of AIDS and the savings-and-loan crisis. It's far from the sun-dappled world of the 1950s, but then, I suppose part of the point is that the sun-dappled world of the 1950s was not as lovely as it seemed in retrospect, either. (The novel is set in the late 1950s.)
But, few films have been as insistent about the almost magical power of youthful innocence as It does -- really, the only one that comes to mind is Stephen King's own Stand By Me, and there are times in It when you might as well be watching that earlier, superior film.
There's a group of misfit kids who hang out together and like each other. There's a horrifying truth about the violent insanity of life waiting for them to discover. There's a small town that they know they will have to leave. But for nowhttp://thereinthedark.blogspot.com/2017/09/it.html?m=1, there is this group of swell friends, best buddies who will do anything for each other.
One of them is Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), whose little brother Georgie begins the movie excited about trying out a paper sailboat. (It's sweet and mildly silly that the filmmakers think that kids were playing with paper boats in 1989.) Bill is sick in bed so can't go out with Georgie, and when the boat gets stuck in a storm drain, it's returned by a sinister, killer clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård, under a ton of makeup and augmented with lots of CGI), who then kills little Georgie. That should be the setup for something out of Nightmare on Elm Street, another one of the 1980s movies that this film name-checks, but it never really gets going on that front.
Pennywise the Clown, who in actuality is some sort of shape-shifting monster, is creepy and sometimes icky, to be sure, but he's not all that scary. He's a sinister threat, but the film's presentation of him is mostly a setup for the loving depiction of childhood group dynamics. The movie is at its best when it shows the group of kids interacting with each other. That leaves It feeling uncertain if it wants to be a horror film or a sweet-natured reflection on youth. And even within its horror ambitions, does it want to be a character-driven or an effects-driven sort of movie? It can never decide on any one of these approaches long enough, so it all feels disjointed, curiously unmoving and disappointingly un-frightening.
It is a film that wants to give you nightmares but makes so much effort to mix the horror in with sweet-natured, humor-laden observations about youth that the scary stuff is watered down, and ends up mostly being successful when it's accompanied by very loud bursts of music and sound effects. It has to settle for jump scares rather than real dread.
The acting by the kids is uniformly terrific, particularly Sophia Lillis as Beverly, the sole girl in the group, Jeremy Ren Taylor as Ben, the "fat kid" who has a crush on Bev; and Jake Dylan Grazer as hyopchondriac Eddie. The rest of the child actors are fine, and Skarsgård is best in his first scene attacking Georgie in a sewer. Most of the rest of the time, his performance is overpowered by the incessant use of CG effects to depict the malevolent character.
The story is fine, the kids are really wonderful, and while It delivers on some of the visceral thrills, the movie never meshes its two parts effectively, and the final showdown between the kids and the clown is the kind of overblown, overproduced and murky sequence that mostly leaves the audience wondering why characters are doing what they're doing, and who is supposed to be doing what to whom. The big confrontation is the worst thing about It. That climax plays a lot like a creepier version of a Harry Potter film.
The best parts of It are the elements that seem feel like a remake of Stand By Me -- the easy rapport between the kids, the way they are determined to find things adults can't or won't find, and the way their own little skirmishes can become minor wars -- not to mention nostalgic talk about the entertainment of the time.
I confess I had no idea, until the final title card appeared, that It is actually the first of two parts. That left me feeling mildly better about the movie, because a lot of motivations, ideas and actions are not explained in any satisfying ways in It. The assumption is the important characteristics will pan out when Part II shows us the kids 27 years later.
Stephen King fans should be pleased about that response. Everyone else, I'm not so sure. Fitting the filmmaking trend of the day, it's not a standalone film, and if motivations, character development and even some plot points (like the origin and purpose of the clown) are unclear, it's because the studio and the filmmakers assume no one will complain that it's unfinished because, hey, it's a franchise!
But that makes it a less than entirely satisfying movie on its own. Neither the best nor the worst Stephen King adaptation, it's the first part of a longer-term project, and can only be judged on its own as well and as fairly as you'd judge a movie if you walked out halfway through.
It as it is is more or less fine. It's not particularly effective as horror, at least not the kind that gets under your skin, and it's only mildly thrilling at times. It works best solely as a nostalgic reminiscence of an easier time that, in fact, wasn't easier at all.
Viewed 9/9/17 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
2000
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