It (The New Version)

It (2017)

85% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 231 reviews)

Runtime: 135 minutes

Directed by: Andy Muschietti

Starring: Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Bill Skarsgard

From: Warner Brothers/New Line Cinema

I finally saw this movie... and I did enjoy it (or It) quite a bit: 

Last night I went to a drive-in and saw a pair of movies. Yes, some of those are still around, Florida included... where they stay open all year except for real bad weather. Because of reasons I hadn't been to one in a few years so I figured this was the time to do so. The second part of the double feature I'll review tomorrow but today I'll talk about the front half of the double feature, which is a film that has been a surprisingly gigantic hit at the box office.

Most people-even if they haven't already watched this, which plenty have-know the general story from either the novel or the 1990 miniseries so I don't need to spend much time recapping the plot. This is different from the miniseries in that it is all about the kids and the Chapter 2 which will likely come out in a few years at most due to the success of this, that will be these kids as adults. The setting was also changed to 1989, so the second film will be in modern times; the bullies here aren't greasers but instead metalheads... the worst kind of metalheads, those that are horrible human beings; much to my delight they did have mullets.

Due to having a much higher budget, the aid of computer effects, the R rating and a longer runtime, there are various differences between this and the 1990 version in showing the story of The Losers Club as children. I say this is the scarier of the two, for sure, and it's not just the CG moments that make this true. How Pennywise moves like he's an animal hunting his prey is one example. Skarsgard as the title character is great in a different way than how Tim Curry was great. There are plenty of chilling moments, representing all sorts of horror, including some of the interactions between the kids and their parents.

I liked the kids in the miniseries but the ones here are better, both in performances and how they all interacted with each other. They picked the perfect kids for the roles; they meshed with each other so well. The rating also allowed for plenty of cursing/vulgar language and that did make me laugh, especially much of what Richie said. It was easy to root for those outcasts against a pure embodiment of evil.

While the movie does a few things that seem overly familiar now with the type of horror that has dominated the theatrical world in recent times, it is done in such a way where much of the movie feels fresh instead of tired and hackneyed. I am relieved this lived up to the hype and was not overrated nonsense; I just hope they do as good a job in picking adult actors that work as well together as these kids did.