I'm waiting in line for my theater. All the showings are sold out and there are as many people here as a midnight release of a Harry Potter movie. It's crazy. Edit: And they're adding showings. Amazing.
As someone who has not read the book and is typically not a fan of horror films, I loved this movie. I did not expect to laugh that much. I'll echo the same "shaky Pennywise run" complaints. It was weird and even had some people in the theater laughing each time it happened.
This was SO AWESOME. There was a line out the door at my theater, and the showing I went to sold out.
I feel like I can't find anyone else online who thought it was just "ok". There were so many moments that made me kinda cringe...like the rock throwing scene, the blood cleaning montage, etc. Will probably see it again and maybe get a different result.
Not sure if you follow any Youtube critics/channels, but Doug & Rob Walker of Channel Awesome/Nostalgia Critic both weren't huge on it.
The kids floating in the air and that start coming down after It dies are all dead, right? It's just their corpses?
Camera work in this was a weakpoint and really reminded me of American Horror Story / Ryan Murphy. I'm in the just OK camp overall, but not in the sense that I felt "meh" about the whole thing; more like 70 percent of the scenes were great and 30 percent were various levels of not-great / inconsistent.
It was ok. Even though the movie was over 2 hours, it felt rushed and jumped from scene to scene. I don't think the director did a great job of conveying the sense of dread that covers Derry in the book. They also didn't spend enough time going into the dysfunctional families all the kids came from or how fucked up Henry and his gang really were.
I loved the blood cleaning montage and rock scenes personally, I felt they kept the light tone recurring enough throughout the course of the film that it never felt out of place and was a nice cleanser between the "oh god, please don't go down there" moments
Just little criticisms: -Didn't like the song playing during the rock fight, just felt it undercut such an important scene and turning point for the group as a whole. -Mike was underutilized, there was like a solid hour after his introduction that he doesn't appear again. -Nitpicking a bit but didn't like them using them cleaning the bloody bathroom as their bonding moment halfway through the movie. -Henry just felt held back. Felt like he was just pissed off at everything and not quite as sadistic. Didn't like how he just took the defeat of the rock fight and his demise just seemed a little too cookie cutter villain type. -Certain parts just didn't tie together that great. Like for a while it just felt like beat for beat you knew what scene was coming next and didn't flow that great, instead feeling like okay we gotta get this, this, and this in now.Having said all that, I probably haven't enjoyed a movie as much with that much criticism (and it's not even that much).
See for the rock fight scene, I already felt like there was plenty of humor throughout the film that it wasn't necessary, and you could've just kept in Richie's sendoff to Henry if you wanted the light tone still. The rock fight is supposed to really solidify the Losers as a strong cohesive unit and also really start to drive Henry insane. Just felt like the scene really needed a serious, coming into their own tone.
Some thoughts: The projector scene fucked my shit up. Like props to the filmmakers getting me used to the first part of it through the trailers, I totally did not expect that and I honestly gasped and jumped when Pennywise burst through the light on the wall. The pharmacy had modern products on the shelf. It's totally a completely minuscule thing but it was noticeable. Mike got the shaft in this. Out of all the kids, he had the least amount of time spent on him. I really dug how the adults are portrayed in this, much better than how they were in the miniseries. That pharmacist scene made my skin crawl. Finn Wolfhard stole the show as Ritchie, he was by far the best out of the seven and his charisma was through the roof. Kid's gonna be a big star if he keeps going. I liked the wink with the Lego turtle. Henry Bowers was also very under-utilized in this, probably one of the film's true flaws.
so Henry must have been pretty awful in the book because I was terrified of him here. I mean, he tried to run Mike over, he attempted to shoot a fucking cat, he carved into Ben's belly with a knife, he brutally stabbed his dad, pretty sadistically stalked the kids as they were consistently terrified of where he might be...idk, seemed pretty brutal to me
If they don't want the spoilers, then I do! I don't plan to read the book, but if I eventually do I don't care about spoilers... most of the story is probably spoiled by seeing both film adaptations anyway haha.
Probably not, it's hella long and there are a couple other King books I'd rather tackle if I'm gonna delve in. Spoil away!
Here's something creepy / awesome: some friends found red balloons tied to numerous sewer grates in our hometown in Wisconsin. Best part is our hometown is a small little thing that reminds me a lot of Derry. Gonna be fun to find these in person when my flight lands in a few hours.