It Chapter Two

Image credit: Wikipedia

Adaptations are an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand, they can result in some truly amazing pieces of cinema. On the other hand they can make all manner of audiences mad as hell. Adapting a book into a film is a slippery slope lined with all sorts of risks: the director’s interpretation conflicting with the readership’s, will certain aspects translate as well on screen, and many more. Some books have famously been labelled as ‘unfilmable’, while others lend themselves 100% to cinematic interpretation.

Then there are some that are a mix of column A and column B. It is a classic example.

I went and saw Chapter Two last week. Following on from It, the film follows the group of childhood friends known as ‘the Losers’ Club’, as they reunite in Derry to put an end to a horror that has plagued their hometown for decades. Ben, Bill, Eddie, Beverly, Richie and Mike all find themselves right back in the nightmare that haunted their childhood with Pennywise the clown snapping, snarling, and terrorising their every step.

It is one of the most interesting cases of the adaptable-unadaptable book debate because, on the one hand, the book in its entirety is jam-packed with stuff that simply does not translate to film, but on the other hand, the central story is classic monster movie material and pretty hard to screw up. Though I have to say that It Chapter Two definitely gave it a red-hot go.

Perhaps it was the literal time gap between the two films or maybe it was that it was filmed as the kids’ story and then the adults’ story, but there was a definite jarring effect happening here, like the two films were not actually linked to one another. The adult versions of the children were unimpressive and relatively mundane, definitely not inspiring any sort of emotional attachment and their relationships (and by extension cast chemistry) was really strained.

The suspense was cheap, the scares were cheap, and even Pennywise had lost his edge. There’s a whole new aspect added into the plot, which I don’t remember in the original or the book at all so *inhales breath* not of a fan of that creative license and there was nothing really new or groundbreaking in terms of the genre or special effects that made it worth my time.

I will say that I kind of, maybe would give it snaps for its anti-bullying (?) message and I definitely enjoyed Stephen King’s cameo, but at the end of the day It Chapter Two was just a boring and tactless adaptation of a story that’s been done before.

Image credit: TNP

It makes me wonder what was the thinking behind remaking It? The original with Tim Curry, while very camp, is still perfectly creepy and entertaining. There’s an endless stream of original content out there, studios just won’t touch it for fear of losing money if the film doesn’t work. Instead, they opt for remaking the franchises that have worked in the past because, even if the film is awful and a blight on an artistic and expressive medium, the studio already has its money guaranteed because people are going to be like ‘well I liked the original’.

I have to say I feel that this attitude is poisoning the industry and while there are studios and filmmakers out there who are trying to make good films for their audiences, they just get bogged down amidst so much crap.

While I love the story of It and didn’t mind the first part, Chapter Two falls under the aforementioned umbrella of crap.

Director: Andy Muschietti, 2019

Cast: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Teach Grant, and Nicholas Hamilton