Review: It

The much awaited adaptation of Stephen King's It is here and it is a rollercoaster. Tonally all over the place, the film veers from funny to scary to not scary back to funny so many times that it feels like its the shapeshifting Pennywise the Dancing clown.

Speaking of Pennywise, when the film lets Bill Skarsgård act he is a truly wonderful incarnation of one of King's most memorable villains. Drooling, kid-like and sinister, this Pennywise could have been one for the ages. However, too often the film using computer augmentation to make Pennywise into a herky-jerky monster that washes the fear away. The same is true of a terrible new creation, a stretched painting of a woman that comes to life to terrorize one of the kids.

The young group of actors collected to play the members of the Loser's Club that Pennywise is after are fantastic. The film allows them to talk like kids, being R-rated and all, and thus some of the film's best moments come from them all just hanging out. The film allows for us to meet each one of them and see how "It" first appears to each one of them. Some of these moments are truly unsettling but others don't rely enough on performance over special effects. 

Jaeden Lieberher as Bill and Sophia Lillis as Beverly are standouts but all the young actors deserve credit here. Director Andy Muschietti seems to have a real knack for bonding these children together and translating that to some hilarious scenes in between the scares. If one were to cut out the horror elements of the story, a great coming-of-age film would remain. Oddly it is the horror elements that are mishandled. 

When Muschietti remains restrained and relies on Skarsgård's gleeful and horrific take on Pennywise, the film is strong and genuinely scary. A scene in a decrepit house is full of clever frights. However, too often the image of Pennywise gets twisted into some CGI creation that loses the power. Muschietti seems determined to turn Pennywise into the kind of monsters that have plagued modern horror films, all effects and no performance. 

The other issue is the film's tone. Too often the film's humor undercuts the scenes of frights. There is little sense of dread in the film. Dread is a key element in King's novel. The Loser's increasingly realize the trouble they are in, "It" feeding off their fear. The film touches on this but never builds the dread needed to make what happens feel dangerous or truly evil. Scenes rather take on a kind of disjointed feel, sure they make sense one after another but emotionally they don't hit. By the time the Loser's enter the sewers to fight Pennywise, we should be certain they are going to die as should they. Instead they crack jokes and quip. 

There are flashes here of the film Cary Fukunaga's original take, he was removed as director early on in pre-production. One has to wonder if his film would have captured the dread so imperative to the story. For many, including this reviewer, It was a gateway into horror. 27 years later, the film still manages to hold some sort of power. Combined with a great ensemble, the film is solid but one can't help but feel something is missing, mostly fear. The film is also fun, but is that what this story needs?

3.5/5