It: Chapter Two (2019) ***

(Warning: Contains spoilers for the first installment of "It" from 2017)

Adapting Stephen King's work to the screen has always been a tricky affair. King is a great storyteller and a great creator of horror because he knows that the scariest thing in this world is the human mind. His stories may have a supernatural element, but the biggest monsters in his stories are always the human ones. So much of his horror takes place in his characters' twisted, confused, flawed, utterly human heads that it's hard to translate that onto a movie or TV screen. You get the occasional classic, like “Carrie” or “The Shining,” but a lot of King movies just suck.

This is the second effort at King's excellent novel “It.” I finally saw part of the 1990 TV mini-series, and it is un-watchable! Tim Curry is fairly memorable as Pennywise the clown, but the rest of the cast, including Harry Anderson and John Ritter, don't carry their weight. The soft-focus cinematography is very dated, and the special effects look like something from a 1970s Dr.Who episode.

Fortunately, director Andy Muschietti has done a much better job at this iteration. I especially liked his first installment, “It,” which came out in 2017 and focuses on a group of kids in Derry, Maine who call themselves The Losers. All damaged or bullied in some way, The Losers do battle against an ancient evil living under their town, an evil which rises every 27 years to feed on children. “It” feeds on fear and can take on any form, but it mostly appears as a clown called Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard). The Losers defeat It in 1989, driving It into hibernation. They then grow apart, grow into adults, and most of them leave Derry.

“It: Chapter Two” picks up in 2016. Only Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) still lives in Derry, and oddly, only he has any memory of Pennywise and the Losers' fight against It. The other Losers have managed to forget all that stuff. When kids start disappearing again, Mike recognizes what is going on and notifies his old friends. None of them know exactly what the phone call is about, but they know that they have to return to Derry, and they know it's for something bad.

The first chapter of this story was tightly wound, perfectly cast and paced. Unfortunately, Chapter Two is a bit uneven. They recruited some top-notch talent for the grown-up Losers, including Jessica Chastain as Beverly, James McAvoy as Bill, and, best of all, Bill Hader as jokester Richie. Bill Skarsgard once again is chilling as the murderous clown. The plot, however, goes in fits and starts. I think the problem may be that the novel was too much story for a single movie, but not enough for two, especially movies of this length. Where the first movie maintained laser focus on the kids, Chapter Two bounces back and forth between 1989 and 2016, and its 2 hour 49 minute run-time feels padded. Despite the leisurely storytelling pace, some of the main plot points feel forced, a sign of lazy writing.

With two really long movies to work with, you wouldn't think Andy Muschietti would have had to leave out anything from the novel, but one of my favorite concepts from the book is missing in the movies. In the book, It doesn't just feed on the town, It also feeds the town. Due to Its magic, Derry is way more prosperous than the usual small town, and the adults are complicit on some level with the arrangement. As long as their own children aren't involved, adults in Derry tend to avoid seeing what is happening in the town. It was an interesting commentary on people's ability to ignore injustice and atrocity when it benefits them, and I don't know why this motif didn't make it into the movie.

Despite my quibbles, “It: Chapter Two” is still decent entertainment. 2017's “It” is excellent, and having watched that, you may as well settle in for Chapter Two. I suggest limited expectations, and given the length of the movie, a comfortable couch.

3 stars out of 5