User blog:AustinDR/Lucy Reviews: It

Sigh...well, I finally watched the new It movie, so I suppose you would want to know what I thought about it. For starters, this was actually pretty close to the book. The film concerns a young boy who has a brother he believed to have been kidnapped. He then learns that there is a long history of missing children in the town he lives in. And it all seems to be tied to an evil clown that eats children. Now, most movies that were adapted from Stephen King's novels tend to be bad...that film based on The Dark Tower? No thank you. So as you've probably guessed, I felt that this film would blow. But I have to say that I am impressed. This movie successfully outdoes the 1990s miniseries, which was a watered down take on the novel. This film has no qualms with going out of its way to show children getting hurt or killed. My favorite part definitely has to be when Georgie gets his arm bitten off by Pennywise and then getting dragged into the storm drain. Though I would've actually loved to have seen that one bully get eaten alive by flying leeches.

I also kind of liked the interactions that Bill shares with his brother and the Loser Club. Unlike the miniseries, here, I am convinced that he had a loving relationship with his brother, so much so, it did actually make me wish that Georgie ran off instead of deciding to get that stupid paper boat. Georgie was also pretty surprising. His actor did a very good job by making him naive and innocent, but not to the extent of making him come off as annoying. While I didn't feel the kinship with the Losers Club at first, I ended up believing it towards the time when Beverly got kidnapped. Which brings me to Pennywise. Bill Skarsgard does a great job as Pennywise. I love how his take on the character is more animalistic and brutal than the miniseries and even the original book. There are several things that make Pennywise creepy: the way he moves is unnerving. He constantly spasms as though he were having a seizure, he has the tendency of shifting his eyes behind his head when he begins to shapeshift, and then there's his constant drooling. However, as much as I love this take on Pennywise, I think I'll have to prefer the 1990s one. With Curry's Pennywise, he was more subtle. While you could easily pass 90s!Pennywise off as scary from the get go, Curry's interpretation of the character is innocent enough that you'd never expect him to turn violent when you drop your guard. That, and I hate to admit, but the library scene is still my favorite part of the miniseries. With Skarsgard's Pennywise, it seems as though he's trying hard to keep up the image of a monster clown. And what was with that dancing towards the end? He had Beverly right where he wanted her...but he starts dancing.

That's also something that I didn't like about the movie. Every time something dark happened, there would be a comedic moment that would completely destroy the tone. I know this movie took place in the 80s, but come on. Also, Stan and Mike seemed to be pointless characters. Mike was a historian in the original novel, but Ben takes his place as the de-facto historian here. For a movie that is exclusively about the kids first, some of the Losers Club members were bland and forgettable.

So, that's all I have to say on the film, I guess. If there's anything the film taught me is that every storm drain out there should be destroyed.