Release Date: September 6, 2019

Director: Andrés Muschietti

Starring: Jessica Chastain (Beverly Marsh), Bill Hader (Richie Tozier), James McAvoy (Bill Denbrough), Bill Skarsgård (Pennywise), Jay Ryan (Ben Hanscom), James Ransone (Eddie Kaspbrack) and Isaiah Mustafa (Mike Hanlon)

MPAA Rating: R

Our Rating: A-

“It Chapter Two” is the sequel to “It”, which was previously released in 2017. This will be the final chapter, considering the book series, written by Stephen King, only lasted two books.

In the continuation of the “It” film, The Losers Club reunites in Derry due to Pennywise’s return. Their goal is to stop Pennywise and kill him for good. Mike tells the group that he found a tribe while in Derry that showed him a ritual that destroys Pennywise and ensures that he will not come back. Because of that, the majority of the movie is spent with The Losers Club collecting tokens that are necessary for this ritual. When the plot begins to thicken, we see each character individually finding their token and whilst doing this, get spontaneous flashbacks of their time in Derry as children.

Gathering the tokens is by far what takes up most of the run time in the movie and this is unsettling to many viewers. “It Chapter Two” almost hits the 3-hour mark and this is fine with most viewers because they assume the movie will be entertaining and they will not notice. After reading some reviews from the audience, it is clear that the majority agrees on one thing- the movie is too long for its own good. Some people have been complaining about how collecting the tokens took longer than necessary and it should have been cut down to shorter scenes for each character, but we completely disagree. While watching this film, we felt completely immersed in the plot and character development that was occurring. Yes, the collecting of the tokens could have been cut down to shorter scenes, but looking back, we were never bothered by the length of the movie. If anything, we did not want the film to end.

The cast for “It Chapter Two” is absolutely remarkable. The casting director, Rich Delia, is praised for his casting decisions and we are all grateful. There are three particular actors that we think are worth the mention. Bill Hader perfectly resembles Richie’s child-like personality and humor. Throughout the movie, he is constantly letting out these crude jokes that Hader delivers effortlessly. You can especially feel the young Richie in Bill’s character more than anyone else in the group. James Ransone plays Eddie Kaspbrack in this film. Here, we see Eddie, 27 years later, has not broken out of his fears of death and disease. Ransone flawlessly portrays Eddie’s anxiety and mommy issues from beginning to end and we think that, besides Beverly, he depicted young Eddie the most in facial features and overall appearance.

The audience is torn over the last character we are mentioning- Beverly Marsh. Jessica Chastain was chosen to play Beverly Marsh in this movie. The only problem the audience has with this character is that she is too mature to the point of being “unrecognizable”. Whether it is the screenwriting or the actor that is to blame, it does not matter because we completely disagree with this point of view. What some people have to understand is that Beverly went through a traumatizing childhood where she was abused and coddled for most of it. If you can remember from “It”, her father never wanted her to grow and always referred to her as “daddy’s little girl”. This obviously leaves some kind of emotional scar on Beverly and a method she might have used to free herself from her father’s view on her as a little girl, was to mature. In “It”, throughout the whole movie, Beverly would mention leaving Derry and her father and how she could not wait to grow up and break away from her father’s views of her. People are bothered by Beverly’s current state of mind but do not take her past into consideration.

“I’m hoping to see Bill and Beverly reignite their relationship after 27 years of not seeing each other. When I see ‘It Chapter Two’ I’m expecting it to be just as good, if not better than the first movie,” freshman Joana Ribeiro said.

We love the overall bond The Losers Club contains in the storyline and although they are separated for most of the film, we can still feel their connection throughout. From the casting choices to the run time, we love every aspect of this movie. Any merit this film receives is well deserved and we are grateful to have a horror movie this year that entails such a powerful bond between the protagonists. “It Chapter Two” is a must watch, especially if you were a fan of the first film, and we hope everyone enjoys it as much as we did.