REVIEW: IT

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Sometimes, the hardest part of this job is shutting off the fanboy side of my brain in order to evaluate a film more objectively. Most of the time I think I do a fairly good job with that, especially since I frequently discuss my personal connection to a property somewhere in my reviews. Still, every once in a while, a movie comes along where I know going in that I just have to throw my hands up, surrender and acknowledge that there’s no way I can review it without bias.

IT, the long-awaited big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s beloved 1986 novel, might be the most glaring example of this lack of impartiality since I started reviewing films nearly 16 years ago. King’s epic is an all-time favorite of mine, partially because it’s a terrifying, poignant, and surprisingly funny tale.

However, it’s also inextricably linked to my childhood because I discovered it during a particularly rough time. I was 11-years-old and my parents had just gotten divorced and remarried to other people within a short time. In addition to adjusting to a rapidly changing home life with new step-parents, I was also a shy, socially awkward kid thrown into a new school with no friends. However, I did get to meet plenty of bullies who were excited about fresh meat.

To say I connected with the child protagonists in King’s novel is a massive understatement. Even though they were enduring terrors far more horrific than I was, it still felt like a vacation to escape into their world. As dorky as it sounds, those kids were my only friends for a while.

My personal connection to the material was also why I was equally thrilled and terrified when I heard Warner Bros. was planning a big-screen adaptation. I went from elation when I heard Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) was attached as writer and director to crushed when he left the project.

My hopes sank even further when I heard the movie would focus only on the kid portions of King’s story, rather than interweaving them with the adult sections. The grown up stuff would be saved for a sequel that might not ever happen. Also, the screenplay updated the kid timeline to the 1980s instead of the 1950s setting that was so crucial to the book’s implied thesis: the past isn’t as great as we remember and nostalgia is a dangerous sentiment that can be weaponized in the wrong hands.

Cinematic adaptations of King’s work almost always miss the point and are frequently terrible (you can probably count the good ones on two hands), as evidenced by last month’s bungling of The Dark Tower. Plus, early, out-of-context photos of the new Pennywise were laughably bad, so I labeled this project a lost cause and forgot about it.

But then, like a bright balloon floating out of a creepy storm drain, something crazy happened: I started hearing early buzz that new director Andy Muschietti had assembled a fantastic set of young actors and was creating something special. Then, back in March, the studio unveiled a stunning teaser trailer. Since then, buzz has been practically deafening and – against all odds – I’ve been surprisingly pumped for the movie again.

Now that I’ve finally attended a screening, after years of rumors, false starts and disappointments, I’m ecstatic to report that IT succeeds beyond my wildest expectations. It’s not a perfect film, but Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman (who reworked the original draft by Fukunaga and Chase Palmer), manage to honor the spirit of King’s tale while also updating it for a new generation.

For those somehow unfamiliar with the basic plot (it would be impossible to sum up the entire sprawling narrative), here’s the gist: it’s 1989 in the small town of Derry, Maine and children are disappearing. The adults try to rationalize the missing, but a group of young, emotionally vulnerable outcasts – dubbed The Losers’ Club by bullies – discover something has always been terribly wrong in Derry: an evil entity has lived there for centuries, taking the form of a clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) in order to feast on innocent victims, using their own fear to season the meat.

Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), whose little brother (Jackson Robert Scott) recently disappeared, ultimately realizes that he must step up to fight this monster because no one else will. Even though it appears to be an impossible task, the power of friendship compels class clown Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard); overweight Ben Hanscomb (Jeremy Ray Taylor); hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer); orphan Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs); meek Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff); and Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), whose horrific home life is far scarier than any killer clown, to accompany him on this journey.

Yes, IT is scary – often overwhelmingly so, as any adaptation of this story should be. (I think my knees were touching my chest for the entire third act, so my legs wouldn’t be dangling in front of the dark space under my seat.) Skarsgard’s interpretation of Pennywise – weirdly childlike, almost ethereal, dream logic personified – is much different than Tim Curry’s iconic version from the 1990 miniseries, but it’s effective in its own way. This is also one of the most gorgeous horror movies I’ve ever seen, thanks to Chung-hoon Chung’s masterful cinematography.

However, the crucial reason this movie works is because Muschietti understands Pennywise isn’t the most important aspect – the kids are. All the blood, gore and scary monsters in the world are meaningless if viewers don’t care about the characters. And, man, did I love these kids.

From Georgie (Bill’s ill-fated little brother) to Stan (the least-developed member of the Losers’ Club), each one of these characters makes an impact – even if the roles don’t entail as much dialogue or screen time. Casting director Rich Delia deserves all the kudos coming his way for finding these incredible young actors. Not one of them exhibits the annoying, trying-too-hard traits generally seen with child performers.

Lieberher makes the most of a thankless role, since Bill is kind of a wet blanket by design. Grazer and Wolfhard handle most of the film’s much-needed comic relief (especially Wolfhard, from Netflix’s thematically similar Stranger Things, who drops f-bombs and crude insults with the aplomb of a comedic actor twice his age).

But the performer most people will leave the movie talking about is Lillis, who’s a revelation as Beverly. She radiates charisma, treating her character’s emotionally fraught subplot with the seriousness it deserves and crackling with energy during the more action-heavy sequences. There are several applause moments, and she gets almost all of them. The kid’s going to be a star. (Side note: if the studio doesn’t pay Jessica Chastain – who previously worked with Muschietti in Mama – whatever she asks to play grown-up Beverly, they’re making a gigantic mistake.)

IT has several big flaws, worst among them the laughably terrible CGI used to depict Georgie’s fateful encounter with Pennywise. The monster’s transformation and the bloody aftermath look like something out of a bad video game, which threatens to derail the movie less than 15 minutes in. Fortunately, it eventually recovers and even though there’s still too many CGI-reliant Pennywise sequences, they at least have a nightmarish, “this isn’t really happening” quality to them that works.

Also, even though I typically roll my eyes at “the book was better” criticisms, I was taken aback that the screenplay takes Mike’s defining characteristic – the character who knows Derry’s history and uses it to crack the mythology of Pennywise – and gives it to Ben. As a result, whether inadvertent or intentional (I don’t know which would be worse), this movie’s version of Mike comes off as the token black kid. It’s a culturally insensitive mistake that didn’t have to happen.

Still, despite my qualms, I’m overjoyed at how much IT gets right. Even the updated chronology works, which I never expected. (Although it weirdly makes sense, considering we’re currently experiencing an ’80s nostalgia boom.) If early box office tracking turns out to be accurate, this is going to be a massive hit – which means we should be getting the sequel, which will focus on the grown-ups, in two or three years. I absolutely cannot wait.

IT is rated R for violence/horror, bloody images, and for language.

Grade: B+