Review of It (2017) by Bradward — 10 Sep 2017

"It" was entertaining overall, scary at times, visually appealing, but lacking in an overall artistic vision. Since I do recommend seeing it, and there are plenty of good aspects of the movie, I'm going to focus on the few things that I thought really missed the mark.

The movie is obviously supposed to be horror at heart, but the horror elements were often undermined by misplaced comedy. During the more intense moments, where life is literally on the line, no kid in real life is going to be joking around about something stupid in that moment, but in "It," it happens pretty routinely. It really undercuts the believability and breaks immersion when this happens, and makes you wonder what the director was trying to achieve.

The other gripe I have it with the storytelling. Before major events, usually you have some lead-up or foreshadowing so that when a character does something significant, you know why they are doing it. In "It," the characters were often doing some pretty major actions with seemingly little reason to do so. There are also a few parts in the movie that only make sense if you have read the book or have seen the original 1990 movie, making it so that this movie doesn't entirely stand on its own.

Misplaced comedy and shortcutted storytelling aside, this was a pretty entertaining movie. The visual effects and locations were well-done and creepy, and it made me jump in my seat once.

So, go see "It," but expect to see a very "hollywood" release, for better or for worse.