It: Chapter Two

Trimming the adults' often soppy individual narratives to focus on their more interesting dynamic as a group might have mitigated some of the numbness that sets in from predictability.

There's a grandness to its scale and production values that still makes It Chapter Two an enjoyable romp, but it's not the ghoulish scarefest it could be.

Not unlike the town in which it's set, Muschietti's It only sees what it wants to.

A peculiar mix of the crowd-pleasing and the patience-testing, veering wildly between the entertaining and the frustrating, built round a story that ventures inexorably underground without ever getting to the heart of what lies beneath.

The result is a film with all the unsettling power and visual elan of the kiddy-friendly Goosebumps series (Jack Black + monsters = zzzz).

While Chapter Two works perfectly fine as a complement to Chapter One, it still falls short in that the closer our heroes come to triumphing over "It," the further they get from a satisfying conclusion.

Because we’re dealing with fairly experienced adults instead of naïve children, the film at times feels more like a trip through an obnoxious carnival hall than journeys of personal growth.

"It Chapter Two" is less scary; like early "Evil Dead" films and other 1980s horrors, its crazy creatures inspire surprised laughter more than terror.

Despite the problems of the ending, and being less successful than its predecessor, It: Chapter Two has several stimulating moments through its terror. Likewise, it must be emphasized that it maintains the essence of the literary text.

It Chapter Two fails to deliver a conclusion worthy of its epic runtime. Even with a phenomenal cast, it isn’t as funny, as scary, or even as captivating as its predecessor.