It: Chapter Two is a lot — but that's not necessarily a bad thing

The Losers' Club's grown-up return is somehow both too much and not enough

It 2.
(Image credit: Brooke Palmer)

As if the 135-minutes of toothy clown slaughter in 2017's It wasn't enough, It: Chapter Two, out Friday, tacks an additional 169-minutes onto the epic horror saga based on Stephen King's wrist-spraining 1985 novel of the same name. Much ado has been made about the sequel's nearly three-hour run time, which some critics have blasted as having about as much bloat as its 1,100-page source material: "A game of musical chairs that runs too long," skewered The Washington Post. "Bigger, but not better," deemed Vanity Fair. The Associated Press probably gets the closest to the truth, calling It: Chapter Two "sheer much-ness."

There is indeed nothing minimal about Argentine director Andy Muschietti's long-planned second half to the It cinematic epic, with Chapter Two taking place 27 years after the events of the first film. While King's novel had interwoven the stories of the Losers' Club — who return to Derry as adults to put to rest the evil they had banished but failed to end in their youth — Muschietti's two-part adaptation smartly divides the story into a clean before and after. It is far from a perfect book, but still manages to be a whole lot of fun. Likewise, It: Chapter Two succeeds even more than its 2017 predecessor in embodying that messy "much-ness" of King's novel, in a way that both serves to delight old fans and bring new ones further into the fold.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.