To be fair, do you think it's possible for a movie to do that in such a limited timeframe? It seems like something that really requires a hefty novel, as IT obviously is, or like a three hour movie. In 2 hours 15 minutes it already has to cover the kids getting to know each other and bonding with each other, each kid getting shown a fear in isolation, cover some secondary characters like the bullies, Eddie's mom, Beverley's dad etc, have them deal with Pennywise together at least once before the final battle....what is there is already stretched a bit thin in places.
I'm not sure what could be lost from the movie as is, purely in terms of plot points, without compromising the kids part of the story, in which case I think the issue could only be resolved by making it longer, but maybe that wasn't an option with the studio.
Much like Quentin Tarantinos first volume of Kill Bill offered a delirious yet morally unmoored mixtape of kung-fu spectacle, only for the second installment to provide the context that retroactively made it all meaningful, It very much feels like the flashier half of a longer story.
That's the dark secret. You know like how a village silently accepts their good harvest knowing it was a result of the yearly sacrifice that no one talks about
It was a dark secret for the kids and reader to uncover; that it's known and ignored by the adults is the unsettling disturbing part
From Variety
Ideally that context and larger scope will come in the second movie. Use the research and record keeping of the adult story to show the subtler horror of Derry. I mean, the interludes were all from an adult perspective
You could restructure the interludes as a cold case-esque mystery at the start, then segue into a psychological thriller with the other characters and their struggles
I think this is likely too but I would hope not, that would be short sighted of them. Besides it's not like there are sequels to IT, they aren't gonna get a franchise out of this, so if some dumb people show up and get upset that it's not killer klowns from outer space pt 2 it's not as big a deal compared to if this one fell off a cliff.While it's certainly not inconceivable that the second movie is the one which will provide deeper context for the first and delve more into Derry's history, it's not a bet I would be willing to make at this point. I think it's equally likely that WB could want a movie just based around Pennywise terrifying then as adults. I think WB got exactly the movie they wanted with IT and if it's as as big a success as everyone is anticipating then they might just want another in the same vein.
I hope I'm wrong but I'm not willing to get my hopes up at this stage.
Okay, so: The kids are all pretty damned good. When this movie is working, it reminds me most of the best parts of Stand By Me. It's not as good as that movie, of course, and the performances don't end up anywhere near as good as River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, & Kiefer Sutherland's in that film, but there's also never anything as thin as O'Connell and Wheaton's work. IT is powered by the camaraderie between the kids, and when the film is echoing the sort of "shooting the shit while walking the train tracks" sort of vibe, it's a solid, solid effort.
As a haunted house film, it's pretty decently constructed. I know it's an easy pun - but the film floats from set-piece to set-piece pretty effortlessly. And perfunctorily, but more on that in a little bit. It's not bad, but it's also, surprisingly, not very scary. Like, at all. It hits the beats, it just doesn't hit them all that hard for the most part, outside of one or two really effective visual ideas executed well.
Skarsgard's Pennywise is a twitchy, weird, fidgety presence in the film. But here's where we start getting into the biggest problem of IT - it's not the visuals, because the visuals are pretty damned good (yes, there's obvious CG, but considering the nightmare imagery we're dealing with, unrealistic creatures aren't too distracting), it's not the music, which I found pretty decent in the moments the film gave itself over to the score. It's not even really Pennywise, who I still think looks and behaves more like the monster from the book than I think Curry's portrayal does.
Derry is not a character in this movie. It's just a place where a haunted house is planted. And so far as I can remember: Pennywise never gets an on-screen kill in this movie, save for Georgie at the beginning, and even then, you don't really see that kill.
So yeah. That's a problem. Because part of why the kids feel so imperiled, part of why the book's atmosphere is so oppressive, is due to the town being being malignant and its denizens being complicit in Pennywise's cycle. And in this movie, Derry is just a town. Bad shit has happened here, but its all academic. It's not really felt, and it's not really shown. It's just quickly referenced, usually in passing, and not only does that soften the overall sense of dread, it softens the threat of Henry Bowers, because now he's just a screaming mullet instead of an unhinged manifestation of the town's callousness and cowardice.
And so if you're not going to have the town be a living, cancerous tumor on Maine's ass, then you need to make Pennywise just that much more threatening and malicious, and Skarsgard is basically pinned in a very limited range of giggly superficial evil and confused, uncomprehending frustration. He never gets happy, he never gets really angry, he never really gets frustrated, or scared. The two or three notes he's allowed to play, he plays really well (and he plays them all in that one scene with Georgie) but past that, either he's smiling, or he's giggling, or he's racing at the screen with a go-pro strapped to his chest and that's about it. The clown never really gets his gloves dirty.
It's a good movie. It's a fun little haunted house ride. Finn Wolfhard basically steals the whole movie everytime he opens his mouth (and he apparently loves himself a shitty game of Street Fighter 1). But it's a lot thinner, safer, and lighter than I was expecting. The crowd at the screening was definitely up for that ride. A couple set pieces ended and relieved murmurs rumbled up in response once they were done. But this is a film that doesn't have much of a sense of menace. It hits the beats, sets up the next beat as fast as possible, and then hits that. It finds itself in this weird in-between space where it's fine being profane and bloody as much as it wants, but that's as far as its ugliness ever goes. When it comes to the real nasty shit the book thrives on, the everyday horror of small-town cruelty and ignorance? There's almost nothing there.
Said it in the review thread, but seems like there's going to be a jarring clash between what people think IT the creature is and acts like based on Curry and based on the book
The problem is that people put Curry's performance on a pedestal as this great and defining adaptation of Pennywise, when it's really like watching the Robocop remake first and then being confused and offput by the original because Robocop is so slow and why is his suit so boring and like all he does is walk and shoot.
I had only known Pennywise as Curry's performance till a month ago. After reading the book, his portrayal went from "defining adaptation, guess It is about a killer demon clown called Pennywise" to "wow, wtf, his portrayal sucks. It's like people praising Hannibal Rising's Lecter as the best portrayal of Hannibal"
Personally not worried... a lot of the better King adaptations have smartly devised where in the story it's best to deviate from the source material in order to get the best result. IT Part II will probably have more original material than Part I, my prediction.The book honestly didn't carry its quality into the second half or last third of the story. I hope the movie can somehow salvage the not-so-great quality of the book in the later parts.
With a more ceremonious unveiling than the other Hollywood adaptation of a Stephen King property this year, It is slickly calibrated to please its spook-hungry audience. Functioning more as a roller coaster ride of frights and humor than a dread-inducing exercise in terror, Andy Muschiettis Mama follow-up doesnt have the inspired vision or thematic complexity to join Brian De Palma and Stanley Kubrick in the pantheon of the (very few) masterful cinematic retellings of the celebrated author. However, for a Halloween precursor, there is a respectable amount of carnivalesque mischief to be found in this cinematic equivalent of a deranged jack-in-the-box.
Looks like Pennsylvania is getting ready for the movie.
Police respond to red balloons tied to sewer grates.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/po...-grates/ar-AArlZjv?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
I hope that it is good. That SK tweet tho... I remember when he said he hated Kubrick's The Shining and preferred the TV miniseries adaptation.
You know how Hannibal Rising or Robocop 2014 takes the elements and tenets of the character, tears out all the subtlety, and leaves behind a shadow of the character that kind of resembles their original portrayal in the barest ways?What would you say were the biggest/main differences between Pennywise in the book and TV piece?
Said it in the review thread, but seems like there's going to be a jarring clash between what people think IT the creature is and acts like based on Curry and based on the book.
To be fair in the book, if I remember correctly, that moment felt more similar to IT during the adult parts; for much of the kid's sections, IT isn't Pennywise the creepy clown like it is in the grate. It's playing other horors and hunting down and scaring and devouring prey, or trying to.I snipped part of your post just to focus on this, to disagree in part. For me, I think I'm going to be disappointed just because of the leaked Georgie scene. I thought it was pretty fantastic, and yet most reviews say that's Pennywise's strongest scene. Which doesn't bode well to me personally. So, it may not be like the book, but I'd like more Pennywise performance from Skarsgard and I'm afraid I won't be getting what I'd like.
Still waiting patiently for the Youll Float Too trap remix
Is Pennywise defeated with the inhaler, like in the book?
Please spoilertag something like that
Please spoilertag something like that
This is the OT though, aren't unmarked spoilers fair game here? (And that's not even a spoiler since the dude hasn't seen the movie)
Is Pennywise defeated with the inhaler, like in the book?
My friend made the best comparison on the way home:
Finn Wolfhard's Richie Tozier is basically the kid on the bike in The Nice Guys.
But for a whole movie.
This idea is cracking me up.
This is the OT though, aren't unmarked spoilers fair game here? (And that's not even a spoiler since the dude hasn't seen the movie)
Wait? Did I miss that announcement? We're no longer doing spoiler threads?Spoilers are fine in OT threads since we aren't doing separate spoiler threads anymore.
And anyway, that's a book spoiler.
Wait? Did I miss that announcement? We're no longer doing spoiler threads?
We usually have a spoiler OT separate from the main OT.
From the review thread, here's mine. Just added it to Rotten Tomatoes:
It Review: Stephen King Adaptation with More Carnivalesque Adventure Than Genuine Terror
This is the OT though, aren't unmarked spoilers fair game here? (And that's not even a spoiler since the dude hasn't seen the movie)
Movie still sounds like fun but this is really, really disappointing to hear.Derry is not a character in this movie. It's just a place where a haunted house is planted. And so far as I can remember: Pennywise never gets an on-screen kill in this movie, save for Georgie at the beginning, and even then, you don't really see that kill.
So yeah. That's a problem. Because part of why the kids feel so imperiled, part of why the book's atmosphere is so oppressive, is due to the town being being malignant and its denizens being complicit in Pennywise's cycle. And in this movie, Derry is just a town. Bad shit has happened here, but its all academic. It's not really felt, and it's not really shown. It's just quickly referenced, usually in passing, and not only does that soften the overall sense of dread, it softens the threat of Henry Bowers, because now he's just a screaming mullet instead of an unhinged manifestation of the town's callousness and cowardice.
When it comes to the real nasty shit the book thrives on, the everyday horror of small-town cruelty and ignorance? There's almost nothing there.
The movie is not even out yet