Straight up, It: Chapter Two is a long film! A long, tedious, bloated and punishing feature to slog through! Don't be mistaken, it isn't a bad product necessarily due to this factor. If only director Andy Muschietti knew which parts should he merge, eradicate or shorten without letting his dear footages go on and on and on, the motion picture would have been an excellent outing. The primary reason why the runtime is over 2 hours and 49 minutes is because the script wants to explore each and every character in the story individually, from introduction to their respective journeys of finding their own artifacts. And the number of main characters are 6! On top of that, Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård) and Bowers (Teach Grant) have their own sequences before meeting the rest.
The adventure each has to take to retrieve their own token, while being a decent idea, is repetitive, even if some of the sequences are memorable. This is the same case with the ending too. We've seen this done in the 2017 It, which is copy pasted for the climax here. And just like the first It, what pulls you out of enjoying the show is the drastic jump between tones. The director's depiction of violence is extremely grotesque and uncalled for. Beverly's (Jessica Chastain) husband beating her up as if they are in a boxing ring, bullying a stranger to a point of throwing him down a running river, Bowers (Teach Grant) appearing out of nowhere and stabbing Eddie (James Ransone) in the mouth, Richie (Bill Hader) murdering a man with an axe which spawns no discussion about it at all afterwards and young Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) leaving his mother to die in the basement are ideas that come out of nowhere with no setups in terms of character. A filmmaker should know what could be shown, what needs to be suggested instead of being shown and what serves no purpose for showing at all. For instance, how is showing Richie and his barf pool mandatory in any ways? After displaying all these, how could you expect audiences to laugh or enjoy the parts where the characters are joking and having fun?
Let's talk about the positives for a second. The cast is great! Not only do we have A class actors, they resemble their younger counterparts really well! Bill Hader especially, minus all the immature, layman, first draft dialogues featuring the word 'Fuck' in every sentence, steals the show. There are a few good scares, with Pennywise flying off with a heap of balloons, firefly trap, Pennywise's initial murder at the river, bed bottom corpse, naked grandma, Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) meeting Pennywise inside a school locker, toilet full of blood and sand flood being the examples.
Technicality wise, It: Chapter Two is simply superb! You know the team has spent every dime on the rich production design, with the fun fair and the clown house being the highlight! The filmmakers take the audience to various locations such as the multi-mirror room, ritual spot, underneath the stadium seats and so on. Visual and practical effects here are absolutely unbelievable! Fortune cookie illusion, Derry mascot statue coming to life, Pennywise's various jaw and teeth enlargement, spider arms growing out of Stan's (Wyatt Oleff) head, little multiple arms grabbing Bill's (James McAvoy) hand at the sewers, Neibolt house collapse plus Pennywise spider and shrinkage forms are stellar quality work one must say! However, the deaging effect on the kids stands out like sore thumb. Camerawork is solid, sound editing and mixing are meticulous, and not to forget, many of the scene transitions are fantastic! Blood drops echo, puzzle fitting, Eddie's younger face fitting his older self and letter-typing on the sky are gorgeous!