I'm gonna say I loved the movie, but it had a weak part: The Clown.
Everything surrounding It was fantastic, the build ups to his appareances were very good and the mythos was well explained, but whenever the clown appeared all tension disappeared, and that's because his power was not well explained.
What are his limits? Why does he seem so powerful sometimes and others so frail? Why can't he just transform into a machine gun and kill the kids? Why is he so damn slow to kill them?
Yes, yes, he toys with them, but when he is threatened he still looks and acts like a human clown, not an abomination.
The kids were all fantastic, it's probably the strongest children cast ever put to film, their characterization was good, except for the black guy who is just too /there/ he could have easily been fused with other kid. They carried the film no doubt.
The guy playing the clown, well, it was less of a Jack Nicholson to Heath Ledger jump and more like a Jack Nicholson to Jared Leto. You can feel he's trying the damnest to impress, but he doesn't, it's too predictable, too sterile.
8/10. A must watch imo, but don't go see it for the clown.