It made a killing at the box office in “its” opening weekend, but does “it” live up to the hype? It is spooky and fun enough but not without “its” flaws.
It is based on Stephen King’s 1986 novel of the same name, and covers roughly half of the original book. Taking place in the summer of 1989, the film is based in the town of Derry, Maine, which carries an unusually high amount of disappearances, especially of children. When a group of bullied friends are terrorized one by one by a shape-shifting, demonic entity referred to as “It”, the kids decide to find the monster and bring It down themselves.
The main attraction in It is, of course, Pennywise the Dancing Clown (played by Bill Skarsgard), the demon’s favorite form to take. Pennywise is predictably the highlight of the film, and Skarsgard plays him with flair and ferocity. He could be even scarier, however, had director Andy Muschietti relied less on jump scares and more on slow-burning creepiness and dread.
The cast of children is probably the biggest mixed bag of the film. While they all have an obvious and mostly enjoyable camaraderie, at least a couple of the kids come off as annoying and even unnecessary to the plot. Surely the movie has such a large child-cast because the book did, but it wouldn’t have hurt to cut a couple out and tone down the obnoxious jokes.
Regardless of its imperfections, It has already broken box office records. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, It earned $123 million domestically from September 8-10, giving it the biggest opening weekend ever for both September movies and the horror genre. With word of mouth growing, It stands to become one of the highest grossing R-rated films of all time.
As a movie, It is mostly decent but could be improved. As a cultural phenomenon, It is taking the country by storm and will go down as one of the most successful films of 2017.
Sam's Screen 